Danang Center supporting for Agent Orange victims
1. The overview of the Center
a. The name: Danang Center supporting for Agent Orange victims.
b. The foundation day: May 22nd 2006, under the permission of Danang People’s Committee by Decision No. 3184/QĐ-UB.
Representative: Mr. Tô Năm – Director of the Center.
The number of account: 42111100767717.
The name of account: Trung tâm Bảo trợ nạn nhân chất độc da cam và trẻ em bất hạnh thành phố Đà Nẵng (Danang Center supporting for agent orange victims).
At MHB – Mekong Housing Bank – Danang Branch.
c. Type:
The center caring, nurturing, vocational training and rehabilitation for victims of Agent Orange and misfortune children in boarding form.
d. The managing agency:
The Center is directly under Danang Association of Victims of Agent orange (VAVA Danang), management and direction of the President of VAVA Danang. The Center has legal personality, own seal and account prescribed by the government.
e. Functions and operational purposes:
Increasing the efficiency of programs and projects cooperating with international organizations, internal and external individuals and groups in order to launch the caring, nourishing, training, teaching, rehabilitation affairs for children who are supported in the Center prescribed by the government.
The Center’s operation is doing social works for charitable purposes.
Activities at the Center:
- Caring, nourishing victims of Agent Orange and misfortune children in boarding form.
- Rehabilitation and physiotherapist in many diffrent manners.
- Teaching and vocational training: embroidering, sewing, making incense, beading, making chiffon flower, electromechanical, electronic...
- Organizing recreational activities, entertainment, singing, dancing for children to help them decrease stress and depression, get more confidence and recovery.
Center 3 in Hoa Vang district
Center 1 in Thanh Khe district
e. Professional expertise training for officers and staff at the Center:
Most of staff at the Center has not been trained in social work. Therefore, the Center alsways concentrates on enhancing staff’s qualification, sending staff to attend to short-term training courses on knowledge, childcare skills, rehabilitation, special education… organized by Department of Social Protection, Department of Labor, Invalids and Social, Unicef… For instance, the Center sent one officer to study the caring work of children with disabilities, facilitating one staff to study full-time but also receive monthly salary, organizing trips for staffs to learn experiences at other centers such as Friendship Village and some centers in Ho Chi Minh City.
f. The preferential treatment regimes and allowances for staff:
Because the Center’s operations depend on the funds mobilized, mostly through the deployment of projects supporting the Center, the staffs at the Center work on short-term contracts, mainly on voluntary spirit. In addition to salary, the staffs also receive money for fuel, bonuses for New Year and other holidays. Besides, the Center applies salary increasing form for staffs who have long worked here and have a high sense of responsibiliy, providing Health Insurance and Social Insurance for employees (except for two staffs with disabilities whom the Center are finding supporting approach for). Staffs who had been trained and got certifications will receive the wage level prescribed by the government; unskilled workers will be applied minimum wage coefficient prescribed by the government.
2. The staff and organizational structure of the center:
a. Board of Directors:
Including 1 Director and 3 Vice Directors.
- 1 Director: Mr. Tô Năm (The President of VAVA Danang concurrently)
- 2 Vice Directors: - Mrs. Vo Thi Thu (Communist member – incapacity retired officer)
- Mr. Bùi Trung Hiếu (Communist member – retired officer)
- 01 Vice president for social affairs of VAVA Danang and the Center concurrently.Besides, because of financial problem, some officers at VAVA Danang are also responsible for some positions at the Center:
- The President of VAVA Danang and the Director of the Center concurrently.
- 01 Vice president for foreign affairs of VAVA Danang and officer for foreign affairs and project construction of the Center concurrently.
-Accountant of VAVA Danang and the Center concurrently.
-Driver and clerical officer concurrently.
2. Facilities and equipments at each facility of the Center:
a. Location:
- Facility 1: Located on Thanh Khe Tay ward, Thanh Khe district, sponsored by BIDV Bank. Foundation day: January 2014.
- Facility 3: Located on countryside area – Hoa Vang district, received grant of land from Danang People’s Committee. The aid of 330,000 USD from Unicef is also given to the facility 3 for building, buying equipments and one 16-seat car to transfer children daily.
b. The land for using, the land for building:
- Facility 1: 400 m2 (the whole land area is used) (2 floors).
- Facility 3: the total land area is 11,000m2, in which construction area is 1000m2.
c. Room area:
- Facility 1: including 14 rooms: the office, the rehabilitation room, the classroom, the sewing classroom, the sale room and showroom, the warehouse and the kitchen..
- Facility 3: including three houses of 1000m2 land area for vocational training, studying, rehabilitation, entertainment.
e. Equipments in the rooms:
Appropriate appliances are equipped for the specialist departments. In general, the rooms at facility 3 are fully equipped with necessary appliances for living and studying activities of children.
f. The kitchens at three facilities alsways ensure hygiene and food safety. Each facility has the hall for living activities and entertainment of children. However, because facility 2 alone is given by the sponsor through “Turnkey Program”, the land area is quite narrow.
g. The buildings and facilities for children with disabilities:
Only new- built facility 3 meets this requirement. Because the facility 1 is upgraded from an old school and the facility 2 is supported by the sponsor, appliances for children with disabilities are limited.
3. Children receiving status at facilities:
a. The number of children nourished at the Center in 2013: 150.
b. Processes and procedures for children receiving:
- Profiles and documents: 1 application for being at the center, 1 commitment on health status of children confirmed by local authority, 1 birth certification or its certified copy.
- After receiving full profiles, the officer of VAVA Danang will come to children’s family to examine and test if the child meets the requirements to live in the Center or not.
- Requirements: having ability to move and wash themselves, having tough family background.
c. Conditions, processes and procedures to stop or transfer nourishing form: Nourishment stops in those situations:
- Children turn 18 years old and their family wants to take them back.
- Children make good progress so they can integrate into community and their family wants to take them back.
- Children have strong vocational skills after being trained at the Center and can get a stable work.
- Children die for sick.
d. Setting, managing and storing documents of subject: Documents of subject includes profiles related to receiving and nourishing stopping children, managed and stored at the clerical division of the Center. Storage is under the regulations of clerical work to be able to use in the future.
4. Children nurturing regime at the Center:
- Meals: lunch, snack and milk.
- Cost price:
|
Year |
Subsistence level / month / child |
Intake / day |
Number of meals / day |
Notes |
|
2012 |
200,000 |
10,000 dong |
2 meals (lunch and afternoon snack) |
1 month included 20 days |
|
2013 |
300,000 VND |
15,000 dong |
2 meals (lunch and afternoon snack) |
1 month included 20 n anhydrous |
|
2013 |
300,000 VND |
15,000 dong |
2 meals (lunch and afternoon snack) |
1 month included 20 days |
Eating, staying and living organization for children:
Eating: meeting daily nutrition needs of children. Nutrition division always plans for daily food, organizing eating in groups, helping children who get tough with eating. The Center always focuses on hygiene and food safety for children.
Living activities: staying time at the Center is from 8am to 16pm everyday (except for Saturday and Sunday), napping time is from 12pm to 2pm, depending on children’s gender.
Personal utensils: each child is provided an uniform, a towel and a glass.
5. Education, vocational study, health care and entertainment of children:
a. Education:
- Most of 150 children at the Center have mental and physical disabilities so they can not attend to normal shools. Education for children at the Center do not focus on porpose, but help them adapt to the letters and simple calculations. Almost 100 percent of children coming to the Center can not study at public schools and other social centers.
Depending on the children's health condition, the center classifies, applies teaching forms, consisting of culture class, class for deaf children. For those who could not study, the center will apply entertaining, drawing and singing form to help them recover the fictions of motion and intellect step by step, community integration.
The center contract 2 staffs to teach culture and deaf for the children at every center with 3 times per week.
B. vocational training: after classifying the children, the center will apply the form of vocational training for them at the center. The vocational training consists of: sewing, informatics, making chiffon flowers, beaded, and making incenses.
Children’s job aspirations: some of children who learn sewing have aspiration to return community to find job and earn money themselves when they complete the training (6 children found sewing job in community with the salary from 2 – 2.5 million/ moth. Besides, some who could not integrate community returned the center as a big family
The number of vocational trained children annual.
+ Sewing: 30
+ Making flower: 20
+ Beaded: 10
+ Making incense: 20
The career with levels to train children: primary sewing (the training courses are donated by the association for support of Vietnamese handicapped and orphans)
- The number of children received sewing certification: 20
- The ways of organizing: coordinate with vocational training center of the association for support of Vietnamese handicapped and orphans to organize short time primary sewing training courses for the children.
- The number of children gets job after vocational training courses: 10
c. Health care.
- The center contracts with medical staffs and organizes medical examination every 6 months for Agent Orange victims at the center. Besides, we also cooperate with nurse or doctors at the nearest health center to exam for children.
- Each center has its own medicine cabinet and medical instruments for the first aid at the center.
- At the center 1 and 3, we have rehabilitation room and physical practicing with enough rehabilitation equipment, practice for children.
- For orthopedic surgery, there were two children who were gotten surgery from rehabilitate hospital.
D. Cultural activities, sports, entertainment.
- Organizing the cultural activities, sports, entertainment:
- The center is place where attracts concerns of domestic and international individuals and organization, the youth union, students in the city. It also organizes entertaining activities… The staffs spend time teaching the children to sing, to dance, especially, for the handicapped children, we hope them to be able to rehabilitate such as: motion, intellect, to be more confident and to integrate community.
- The center usually updates the entertaining area, equips audio devices to make children happy. This activity bring effective affects to help children reduce stress, gradually recover the fictions.
e. Organizing productive labor at social protection center.
- The activities of productive labor:
· Incense processing
· Sewing processing
· Farming and livestock
- Ways of organizing:
Incense processing: apply to the children with slight disabilities, the center brings raw materials for children to make product, to get benefits.
Sewing processing: apply to the children with slight disabilities or the deaf and mute, the center brings raw materials for children to make product, to get benefits.
Farming and livestock: apply to the center 3, provide vegetable, eggs for the children’s daily meal.
Using product of productive labor: receiving to process the sewing product, incense at center 1 helps children approach jobs services, besides, although income is not much but that is big encouragement to them.
7. Recommendations:
a. Advantages and dis advantages:
- Advantages:
Getting the attention of the party and the state, local governments and authorities, the active support of many organizations and individuals, domestic and foreign philanthropists in recent years, activities of center are more and more expanded and developed, caring, education, rehabilitation for children gain lots of high affects. Most of them integrate community quickly, so that helps families and society to reduce many difficulties.
The enthusiasm staffs of the center work every day, including Saturday or Sunday, do not mention day and night. So majority of children and family are very happy and satisfied with development of the children when studying at the center. Affect is clear, many of them are depression or hit the others at the first time of studying there but now they are very confident and able to integrate community.
Because of effective affects in the recent time, model of operation of the center is appreciated highly by national association, department of social protection, municipal leaders as well as domestic and international organization. Besides, these also concern to center and make important conditions for the center to continue carrying out the mission.
- Disadvantages:
The center operates and bases on mobilizing funds, so we sometimes have difficulties in organizing and remaining caring activities, vocational training, rehabilitation for children, especially, in paying salary for the staff.
Although the staffs are very enthusiasm but most of them haven’t yet passed good training so, sometimes there are many restrictions in work.
There are 5 staffs in the center who are also handicapped.
Finding output for children integrate community gets restriction because many of them could not integrate themselves.
b. Recommendations and proposing support:
For the non-public sponsorship establishments, the funds are not stable, so we propose to support partial funding such as pay children daily meal as public sponsorship establishments, pay salary for the main staffs to motivate and encourage them to continue to contribute and work for disabled children and encourage other centers to develop the work.
Enhancing the staffs’ capacity: the relevant authorities should organize short term and long term course to train staffs knowledge about social work, taking care of disabled children, special education…
Support social working staffs for center, bus or fuel to pick up the children to center every day.
Support partial funds for disabled staffs who are working for center.
Support equipment:
Industrial sewing machines
Civil sewing machines
Computer
Making incense machines
Mixing flour machines to make incense
Over lock machines
Materials to make chiffon flowers, beaded.
Support rehabilitation equipment: treadmill, rehabilitation machines, elastic exercise machines, swings, toys for disabled children…
Support money for lunch, mid-afternoon meal for 150 children at 3 centers…
Contract teachers to teach sewing, signal language, and support rehabilitation staffs.
Support money to buy equipment, materials to meet making chiffon flowers, sewing classes.
Support partial fund for stationery, school supplies… for 3 centers
Support equipment for entertaining area.
Support equipment for teaching.
Support for buying vitamin to detoxify agents orange victims at steaming center, and rehabilitation.
- VAVA DA NANG -
