Here is some of what we're proud to have achieved in the 9 years that we worked at Hoi An Orphanage:

Health

Surgeries and Improved Health Care

We have worked with other charities to bring better health care and surgeries to the children. Tendon release, cleft lip and cleft palette surgeries, shunt and heart surgeries were amongst those that the children have benefited from in the last few years. In some cases, these were life saving.

Physiotherapy

Our Physiotherapy programme has achieved excellent results. German Physiotherapist Kalli Heinemann came every year to train our staff and to help them develop rehabilitation programmes that focused on the holistic development of the child.

Dental Treatment

All of the Orphanage children (and the staff and their children) received regular, first class, dental treatment. When we first started to treat the children's dental problems in 2004, none of them had ever visited the dentist before; the dentists involved said that they had the worse teeth on mass that they had ever seen. At least once every year, we took the children to the nearby city of Danang and the excellent dentist facilities and services provided by the East Meets West Foundation.

Education

Special Education

We established a thriving Special Education programme that catered for, and developed, children with all levels of physical and intellectual disability. Children who just a few years before could not talk, read or write began to do all of these things and more. Special Education is not yet a well-known discipline in Vietnam. We were fortunate that our teachers were regularly trained by a Special Education teacher from Australia who trained them to work more creatively with the children whose needs were greater than that provided for by mainstream education.

Staff Training

Existing Orphanage workers have been upskilled and trained, and we employed and developed additional local staff.

Quality of Life

Improved Living Conditions

Unsanitary living quarters were renovated, a bathroom equipped for disabled access was installed; bright, well-stocked therapy rooms were established. We provided regular maintenance, repairs and building assistance to ensure that the Orphanage premises were a safe environment for the children to be in.

Social Activities

We have provided countless birthday parties and happy days out, to the beach, the park, local restaurants ­ no small thing to children who, until we started working there, had not been beyond the Orphanage walls.