Helping Blind Vietnamese Children

The Anh Sang Sightless Children's Sponsoring Center in Lagi, Vietnam is a fantastic center that takes in blind children from poor families in Southern Vietnam who cannot afford (and don't have access to) specialist education such as learning braille in their home towns. If these children stayed at home here they would not be able to attend school and would mostly be left at home alone while their parents worked. Within our local community we work with the kids to sell their jewelry, and also to bring their musical band to Mui Ne to raise funds to pay for their everyday expenses such as food, water and electricity, but as these children are growing up we want to help them become more self sufficient in adulthood and the transport time and costs to Mui Ne from Lagi is quite prohibitive (around 1.5 hours drive each way and the cost is around US$100).
Ms. Phuong who runs the center has been a wonderful teacher to these kids, so they not only have a scholastic education and the necessary practical skills to take care of themselves, they also have been taught different skills matching to their individual talents. Some of these kids have musical talents and have a band, others create and sell jewelry, and others can give fantastic massages as they are so adept at relying on their other senses. All the older kids have been taught English by expats here (and the younger kids are learning), but sadly Lagi is a small town with no employment opportunities for the blind as they reach adulthood and the location of their current center is prone to flooding over the rainy season, so often the children's dormitories are inundated with muddy water. Our aim is to raise funds to move Anh Sang to a dry hillside in the tourist town of Mui Ne where these young people can reach self sufficiency through industry and employment as they become adults. We have had land donated here for this purpose, but as this land does not have buildings, electricity or water we need to raise almost US$100,000 to move them here. Once here the band will be employed by local resorts and restaurants, and the youths can easily attend events such as our Mui Ne Street Food Festival to sell their crafts. We also plan to include a café at their new center where day tours to our famous sand dunes will stop for a coffee at the end of their tour and enjoy live music and the possibility to buy the hand made jewelry and crafts in the cafe's gift shop.
Talking to many different people around the world, they wonder how they can make a difference to help those in need in developing countries like Vietnam as so many charities pay large amounts of the proceeds raised to cover salaries, administrative fee's etc., so now I will share with you who I am and how much of your donation will go to the children. My name is Kristy Marland, and I am an Australian expat living in Mui Ne, Vietnam and I am employed here as a Resort General Manager. I volunteer in my personal time to assist Anh Sang (and I also donate money personally to help educate these youths). Personally I receive absolutely nothing from any funds I raise for Anh Sang, and no money is paid to cover any administration expenses, so what I receive is warm fuzzies. All profits from this page are to be donated in their entirety (100%) to the Anh Sang Center and will be put towards the cost of their move to Mui Ne. Sadly the donated land is 2km from existing homes, so therefore the water and electricity will need to be connected to this area, as well as building dormitories, bathrooms, a kitchen, dining room, class, music and craft rooms making the costs quite high by Vietnamese standards, but based on the estimates we have been quoted, the connection of water and electricity will be US$20,000 and the buildings including ground works and taxes will be US$74,000.

Over the last few years I have personally gotten to know (and love) Ms. Phuong (who receives no salary for her work, and lives full time with the children) and all the Anh Sang kids, and while they need some help to get started in this, they don't want to be asking for help forever. Please consider donating as much (or as little) as you can afford to help move Anh Sang to Mui Ne so they can help themselves in the future.
To get to know these kids better and see more about Anh Sang please visit the English language Facebook page set up for them by another caring expat "Anh Sang Orphanage, La Gi, Việt Nam" or their Vietnamese page "Khiếm Thị Ánh Sáng".Below is the information I share with guests in my resort about Anh Sang as we also sell some of the jewelry made by these kids that you may enjoy.


Anh Sang Sightless Children’s Sponsoring Centre
Located in the nearby town of Lagi, Binh Thuan Province, the Anh Sang Sightless Children’s Sponsoring Centre is a fantastic non-governmental organisation that relies on the hard work of its students and teachers to raise the necessary funds for these talented youths, providing them with accommodation, meals and education.

The centre takes care of 30 youths aged between 4 and 24 years of age. The majority of these youths are completely blind but a few have impaired vision and can see shadows. Some are orphans but others have been adopted by the centre, as due to the poverty and lack of specialised care in this region, families would not otherwise be able to provide care and education for these children.

This Centre was established by Ms. Phuong when the orphanage they were previously taken in by could no longer meet the specialised needs of these amazing young people. Due to the generous donation of land by a local teacher, Ms. Phuong began her quest to build a centre and create a loving home for these youths in Lagi.

These children attend the local school for half of their day and when they return to the centre Ms. Phuong continues their education using equipment suited to meeting their needs. All the children learn to read and write braille and have a good library available to them. They are taught to use an abacus in place of an electronic calculator and they have computers that sound out each letter as it is typed by the students so they can be sure they have not made a mistake with their touch typing when they are doing their homework. As there are only very limited braille books, and suitable equipment that is in their native Vietnamese language, these children are also taught the English language and are surprisingly apt and a real pleasure to communicate with. During my recent visits to the centre the kids actually operated as translators between Ms. Phuong and I. They truly seem to enjoy my visits as it gives them the opportunity to practice their English with a native speaker and are very proud to show me around this great facility. The Centre has separate bedrooms, one for the boys and one for the girls, a communal dining room and kitchen, bathrooms as well as classrooms and gardens.

In addition to their regular classes the students are also taught other activities both for their enjoyment, but also to ensure that when they become adults they can gain employment and integrate into the local community.

As these youths rely so much upon their other senses such as sound and touch they are very talented in creative fields such as music and craft work. Their band regularly plays at local functions and events and their jewelry is hand made with the help of the beads having the color written on the containers in braille.

Please be assured that 100% of proceeds from the sale of this jewelry along with donations made go directly to Anh Sang. We can also assist in visits to the centre as the youths love to meet with visitors who wish to spend some quality time with them talking and singing.