Reaching the fifth child in northern Viet Nam’s Lao Cai province

UNICEF correspondent Sabine Dolan reports on an immunization programme in rural Viet Nam.

24–30 April is World Immunization Week. Immunization is a successful and cost-effective way to save children’s lives. UNICEF has been a driving force behind universal immunization since the 1980s – behind reaching each and every child.

UNICEF and its partners are now intensifying their efforts to ensure that the poorest and most disadvantaged children have access to immunization.

LAO CAI PROVINCE, Viet Nam, 17 April 2013 – It’s Immunization Day at designated health centres in northern Viet Nam’s Lao Cai province. Parents have brought their children to be vaccinated or to receive their follow-up doses.

Giang Thi Mu has brought her 9-month-old daughter Hang Thi Thu to the Tram Y Te Xa sub-district health centre to get her shots. “I heard about this immunization day when health workers came to our community to inform our village and tell us about vaccination,” she says.

Social workers help children with HIV

Mai talks to social worker Trung at the residential centre
© UNICEF Viet Nam/2013/Truong Viet Hung

Thirteen-year-old Mai (not her real name) lives at a shelter for vulnerable children in An Giang, Viet Nam. She’s an orphaned girl living with HIV. After her parents died three years ago, she was looked after by her grandmother. They were very poor so instead of going to school, Mai worked in a rice shop. Her grandmother sold lottery tickets to make ends meet but she was 80 years old and in bad health. In the end, she was unable to look after Mai properly and contacted her local commune authority for help.

Ensuring care for vulnerable children

A-Dung and his grandmother in front of their thatched house.
© UNICEF Viet Nam\2012\Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong

Mua A-Dung lives in a small thatched house on a mountain in Hua Ngai Commune of Dien Bien, a northern mountainous province of Viet Nam. A-Dung’s father passed away when he was only four years old. Three years later, his mother remarried and moved out. He was left in the care of his grandmother, and stays together with his uncle’s family.

New care approaches for children with disabilities

Ho Thi Lan learns new skills at a centre for children with disabilities.
© UNICEF Viet Nam\2012\Sandra Bisin

Eighteen year-old Ho Thi Lan is skillfully typing on the computer key board in the vocational training classroom of Hoa Vang’s brand new centre for children with disabilities.“I am not sure whether I prefer computer training or tailoring. I am getting a lot of new skills these days”, she says proudly. “I think I’d be happy to become a tailor. It would also please my parents.”

Field diaries: Hong Kong young envoys visit Viet Nam

A team of 10 Young Envoys visited the Central Highlands province of Kon Tum
UNICEF/Viet Nam/2012/Ly Phat Linh

A team of 25 Young Envoys from UNICEF Hong Kong visited Ha Noi and Dien Bien and Kon Tum provinces in Viet Nam from July 22-27 to better understand the challenges to children's well-being, and UNICEF’s response to these. The two provinces are among Viet Nam’s poorest, with a poverty rate of nearly 40 per cent in Dien Bien and 27 per cent in Kon Tum. A majority of Dien Bien’s 490,000 residents are ethnic minority people, as are more than half of Kon Tum’s 430,000 population. The UNICEF Hong Kong Young Envoy programme, launched in 1996, is a leadership training programme especially designed for secondary school students to become future pillars of society and advocates for child rights. Below are 17-year-old Julia Zschiesche and 14-year-old Felix Tam Chun-Yan’s “field diaries” from their time in Kon Tum Province.