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.

Local Child Protection Committees are pivotal to identify and support vulnerable children

Nam sells lottery tickets five kilometres away from his house © UNICEF Viet Nam/2013/Truong Viet Hung

I had seen them before, children who are selling lottery tickets in the markets and on the streets. Yet I had never bought a lottery ticket from a child because I didn’t want to encourage them to keep selling lottery tickets instead of going to school. After my field visit to An Giang, I have realised that some children, without support, simply do not have the option of going to school.

It is Tuesday morning and we are driving in a minivan from Long Xuyen city alongside the river to Phu Tan district. It is almost Tet, the Lunar, a.k.a. Chinese, New Year, and in front of many houses the Vietnamese flag is proudly waving accompanied by a yellow Tet tree. I am part of a UNICEF team who is going to visit families to listen to their experiences with the local child protection authorities, in order to improve their functioning.

Sheahan’s diary: volunteering with street children

Sheahan with children from the centre for street and vulnerable children
© UNICEF Viet Nam\2012\Nasir

I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, or more commonly known in Vietnam as Saigon, on July 31st to start my month long internship with Thao Dan Child Center. From their website, I found out as much as I could about them before the initial meeting.

Thao Dan Child Center was established in 1992 by a group of volunteers who wanted to protect and take care of street children in Ho Chi Minh City. They have two centers. The one where I was going to work was a day care center where children would be dropped off by their parents when they went to work and picked up again when going back home. The children are taught basic school subjects like math and English, as well life skills such as money management. They were also given information regarding the danger of HIV/AIDS and the threat of child abuse. The second center, called the “Safehouse”, serves as a day care center, and it also provides housing for up to fourteen orphan boys who have nowhere else to go.