June
2002
Father,
daughter start humanitarian service for children of Vietnam
By Holly Nordvick
Staff Writer
 Chuck
and Annetta De Vet took this photo while in Vietnam. After their first
visit, Chuck determined to do something to help the needy children. (Submitted
photo)
Chuck De Vet and his daughter Annetta live in Prior Lake, but they have
the children of Vietnam on their minds.
“It’s such a poor country many people live on a dollar a day,”
Chuck said. “There are toddlers that are street kids.”
In the most recent of two trips they’ve made to the southeast Asian
country, they visited a garbage dump where several families, including
children, sorted through the trash to make a living. Annetta described
the immense heat with no shade and 2 inches of dust that settled on everything.
And searching through the trash was often unproductive. “People
don’t throw things away (because they are so poor),” Annetta
said.
The De Vets also visited a rural primary school where the headmaster told
them 40 percent of the children were malnourished. “That’s
just a staggering, overwhelming figure,” Chuck said.
During their play break, the students played with flags, the only recreational
equipment they had. And there was only one toilet for 714 students. “You
can imagine what the condition of that was,” Annetta said.
But the De Vets didn’t just go to Vietnam to witness the great need
there. They want to do everything they can to help. Together, they started
Humanitarian Services for Children of Vietnam (HSCV), a nonprofit organization
“dedicated to serving orphans, homeless children and other children
in need in Vietnam,” according to the mission statement. HSCV is
a nonreligious organization that doesn’t promote or oppose any religion.
“There are other places in the world that are probably just as deserving,
but we had to pick just one,” Chuck said. The De Vets plan to go
back to Vietnam sometime this fall to continue their work, with the proper
approval to operate as a charitable organization in the country.
The journey
The first
time Chuck and Annetta visited Vietnam, it was simply as tourists on a
“dad and daughter vacation.” While the two-week trip was primarily
just for quality time and relaxation, Chuck was also thinking of his desire
to help children in need. “In the back of my mind, I wanted to see
if Vietnam was a place where I could do what I wanted to do,” he
said.
Annetta didn’t have any idea what was going through her father’s
mind until after the trip. He then told her he planned to return to the
country, this time to help children. Three months before he left, Chuck
asked Annetta to go with him as a partner in the project and she accepted.
“The way I see it … it’s an opportunity I couldn’t
pass up,” she said.
During their second trip to Vietnam, Chuck and Annetta met with governmental
officials who gave them preliminary approval to do charitable work in
the country. They also have the necessary paperwork to apply for a license
to operate as a nongovernmental organization (NGO).
They also made contact with over a dozen organizations currently helping
children in Vietnam. Since the organization is so new, the De Vets aren’t
able make a long-term commitment to organizations at this time. Instead,
they will make one-time donations of food or needed supplies. “Later
on, we would like to do more,” Chuck said.
Eventually they would like to expand their services to provide more continuous
support, perhaps on a monthly basis. Then, when the organization has established
itself in Vietnam, they’d like to have a more permanent presence,
Chuck said. That may mean providing their own services instead of supporting
the services of other organizations and it could mean hiring a few staff
members. “We’re going to have to take it one step at a time,”
he said.
Though it was difficult, Chuck and Annetta chose three charitable organizations
they felt had the greatest need and that HSCV could do the most good by
helping. They narrowed it down to the Hanoi Association of Disabled Children’s
Assistance, the Hoi Duc District Center for Disabled Children and the
Little Rose Warm Shelter. “You can’t help them all and they
all need help,” Annetta summed it up.
The Hanoi Association is a school for mentally challenged children in
Hanoi. Volunteer teachers educate the children, ages 8 through 13, from
7 a.m. to 5 p.m. five days a week. The association’s greatest need
is for a refrigerator and visual aids for teaching. Donated food often
spoils because they have no refrigerator, and teaching is done using only
pens and paper.
Chuck and Annetta were impressed by the perfect behavior of the students.
Their school is held in a concrete block room that looks something like
a basement. “It wasn’t an area that was particularly conducive
to teaching, but they were doing an excellent job,” he said.
They also visited a clinic in the Hoi Duc District where about 40 mentally
and physically disabled children are treated daily. Volunteer doctors
and nurses provide limited medical help due to the lack of proper equipment.
“They have nothing,” Chuck said. “They can’t even
feed these children.”
Although feeding the children is a struggle, volunteers at the center
said what they most needed was equipment to test hearing and hearing-aid
devices. Right now, several of the children are being treated as through
they are mentally handicapped although they are simply deaf.
The Little Rose Warm Shelter is located in Ho Chi Minh City and cares
for sexually abused adolescent girls. About 25 girls are housed at a time
for eight months to three years. Since it was founded in 1992, almost
600 girls have been helped and sent home to live with their families whenever
possible.
The girls at the shelter had been forced into prostitution, some because
they lived on the streets and others because they were sold to brothels
by their parents. They ranged in age from 10 to 16 years old but some
were as young as 6 or 7.
Annetta could tell that there was a difference between the girls at the
shelter and the other children they met. These girls did not smile or
wave – they didn’t even look at the camera. “It’s
probably one of the worst situations you can put a child into,”
she said sadly.
The people
Both Chuck and Annetta noticed the dignity of the people of Vietnam. Although
they have very little, they are generally happy and hardworking people.
Chuck was impressed by the importance they place on education. Nearly
every child is given the opportunity to go to school somehow, even though
the cost is $12 a year, which is impossible for some parents.
Given the opportunity, they are willing to work very hard to make something
better of their lives. “If you present them with some kind of assistance,
they’ll take advantage of whatever they can get,” Chuck said.
The people also take pride in personal appearance. “It’s really
amazing how clean and neat the people are,” he said. “Some
of their clothes are worn but they are clean. … How they do it,
I don’t know.”
Helping out
The De Vets said they would be grateful for any assistance before and
after their next trip to Vietnam. “It would be nice if we were going
back with some donated supplies,” Chuck said. “It would be
nice if we were going back with some funds.”
They are open to any ideas. For example, they would be interested in finding
nurses or doctors willing to travel with them to Vietnam as volunteers.
There also could be a need for volunteers to teach children music or athletics.
“We’d be interested in talking with anybody,” Chuck
said. “Basically anybody that has an idea how they can do some good.”
Chuck and Annetta pay all their own expenses during trips to Vietnam.
Chuck is retired and Annetta has a part-time job that allows her to spend
time working for HSCV.
Cash donations are spent on necessary projects or supplies rather than
given directly to organizations. Food, clothing, teaching aids, occupational
training equipment and toys are also needed.
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