Fighting the stereotypes: disabilities report launch is a big hit in Viet Nam

On 30 May 2013, UNICEF launched its annual flagship report, State of the World’s Children, in Da Nang, Viet Nam. The subject was disability. Andy Brown was on the ground with UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake as he visited centres around Da Nang and met children with disabilities.

Children with disabilities pose for a photo after their drum game
© UNICEF EAPRO/2013/Andy Brown

I arrived in Viet Nam two days before the report launch. From the air, Da Nang is stunning. We came in to land at sunset, with a cloudless view across a wide river delta and out to sea. Trees and village houses cast long shadows across the waterways and mud-brown fields. Near the coast, a handful of limestone peaks (the Marble Mountains) rose out of an otherwise flat landscape. Here and there, a few cargo boats made their way downstream to the sea.

But Da Nang also has a dark side. During the Vietnam War, its airfield was used to store containers of ‘Agent Orange’, a chemical that was sprayed over the countryside to destroy crops and forests. Now, almost four decades later, Da Nang still has one of the highest rates of birth defects in the region. This is widely attributed to Agent Orange, which contaminates the water supply and food chain.

Photos: helping children disabled by Agent Orange

Dang Hong Dan is just three years old but he’s a victim of the Vietnam War. He was born with disabilities because of Agent Orange – a chemical sprayed in the south of the country during the war to destroy crops and forests. Although the war ended almost four decades ago, Agent Orange still contaminates fields and rivers in the Mekong Delta region. It gets into food and drinking water, causing birth defects in children.

Photos: UNICEF Viet Nam\2013\Truong Viet Hung

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Children with disabilities overcome the legacy of Agent Orange

Three-year-old Dan was born with disabilities because of Agent Orange
© UNICEF Viet Nam/2013/Truong Viet Hung

Dang Hong Dan is just three years old but he’s a victim of the Vietnam War. He was born with disabilities because of Agent Orange – a chemical sprayed in the south of the country during the war to destroy crops and forests. Although the war ended almost four decades ago, Agent Orange still contaminates fields and rivers in the Mekong Delta region. It gets into food and drinking water, causing birth defects in children.

Dan was born with a cleft lip, which has been partly repaired with surgery, and a deformed hand and foot. He is too young to be aware of his disability and the stigma that sometimes surrounds it. He is a happy and active child, with an enormous sense of curiosity and clearly intelligent for his age. “Dan likes to play with anything,” his mother Oanh, 30, says with a laugh as he tries to figure out how to use UNICEF’s digital camera.

The power of vaccines

The first "vaccine" a child receives, breast milk, is free and massively reduces the chances of illness. (c)UNICEF Viet Nam\2007\Doan Bao

This week more than 180 countries are celebrating World Immunization Week.  Vaccines are a life-saving and cost effective public health intervention we often take for granted. They provide immunity against various illnesses causing death and disability that a whole new generation is lucky enough not to remember. Vaccines helped eradicate smallpox in 1977 and are on their way to eradicating polio and eliminating neonatal tetanus and measles. Newer vaccines protect against some types of pneumonia and diarrhoea (the two biggest disease-specific killers of children) and various cancers.

A fully immunized child is more likely to attend school, have greater cognitive abilities, and be a more productive member of society and less likely to be disabled.

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.