Wow, I can’t believe day 4 is already over. It somehow feels like we’ve been here for only a day but it also feels like we’ve been here for forever. I guess that’s what happens when we’re doing so much and having so much fun!! Today flew by especially because we didn’t start until 9:15 am (we’ve been leaving the hotel around 8:20 so far) and our whole morning was our site visit, instead of spending the morning at UEF.
Today’s site visit definitely tugged on our heartstrings in ways I was not prepared for. We visited the VinaCapital Foundation, a charity organization in Vietnam working to help kids with congenital heart defects, help communities in Vietnam gain easy access to clean drinking water, and help educate young women all over the country, but specifically in minority and rural communities. They have so many great programs and are doing so much amazing work throughout Vietnam. Of course, the section of the discussion that hit the closest to home were the programs designed to educate young women, specifically the Brighter Path Girls Club. This initiative is an after school/extracurricular club designed to teach girls about sexual and reproductive health, leadership, financial literacy, and, most importantly, their legal rights. It’s shocking to learn how different cultures across the world, especially those in developing or underdeveloped countries, approach marriage and how they view the women in their communities. VinaCapital Foundation’s scholarship and club efforts will be interesting to factor into my research paper about the growing population of women in the middle class workforce. I think women everywhere are undervalued, but the sexism and misogyny in the U.S. is nothing compared to what 13 year old girls deal with in rural Vietnam. The way that Mr. Kivette, CEO of the VinaCapital Foundation, discussed women’s roles in society were extremely refreshing, especially coming from a man of his age. I think that the Brighter Path Girls Club is a really unique program that’s doing a lot of good in Vietnam but that could do a lot of great things almost anywhere in the world.
I was definitely intrigued by some of the programs of this charity, especially because a lot of them are tackling different issues and are implemented differently than they would be in the U.S., Europe, Japan, etc.. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure of the actual hands on work and implementation but, from what I could tell, some of the program designs wouldn’t get very far in the States. It was curious to me as well how the Vietnamese government is funding most of VinaCapital’s work, and how little pushback they’ve received considering some of the type of work they’re doing. Obviously there’s some, but I’d expect there to be a gradual increase of those willing to speak their mind against the shift in culture that VinaCapital is promoting.
After this enlightening site visit, we went to a nice pho restaurant again. So delicious again, of course. This time, they had fried rice noodles as an appetizer that I unfortunately loved. Then our language class and a history and culture class where we painted our traditional Vietnamese hat. I painted mine with ocean waves because Dylan means “God of the Sea,” and my Vietnamese name “Thuy” means “water.”
Speaking of water, after we painted our hats we went on a little waterbus tour of the city, where we rode on a boat through the Saigon river and we got to see a little more of Ho Chi Minh City. It was a lot of fun and really beautiful. Honestly, the jet lag and little sleep is catching up to me. I’m more tired today but I’m getting to bed early so I can be ready for another day tomorrow!!
