Hi everyone,
My name is Chi; I am a Vietnamese. I work for Clear Path International, an NGO acting in Landmine/Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) Accident Survivor Assistant in central Vietnam. There are five staff at the CPI’s Vietnam office: three females and two males. We were all born after the war, but our daily works are directly related to the painful legacies of the past.
An ordinary day of our work would include field trip to rural, remote areas to respond to new accidents; assess the living conditions and needs of our beneficiaries. (You can see in the photo how kids in remote areas go to school everyday) We also go to hospitals quite often to visit the ones who are receiving medical treatments to their injuries… Despite the fact that the war had ended for more than 3 decades, new accidents still happening at present time. Last Friday, for example, we responded to an UXO accident that killed three men on spot while they were at work.
I really admire our staff for their courage in overcoming hard feelings as they often see fresh wounds and terrible scenes. And, as a way to help overcoming those feelings we often make jokes, telling funny stories when we are back to the office with paper work and data input tasks.
Despite of being a small organization, we are trying out best to reach out as far as we can to lend a helping hand to those in great needs. So far we have assisted 2,528 survivors and their families in 14 provinces of central Vietnam to overcome difficulties. It has been the generous donors of CPI that made those achievements possible.
Hi, Chi. Nice to meet you. It looks like an ordinary life in Vietnam would be an extraordinary one here. I try to imagine how painful those injures can be caused by the UXO accident.
Posted by: Felix Gerena | April 21, 2006 at 04:41 PM