Variety of children's aid programs

Over the past years, Khanh Hoa Department of Labor, War Invalids & Social Affairs has cooperated with relevant agencies, departments and localities to run a variety of children’s aid programs and services to provide assistance for the disadvantaged.

 

Variety of support programs

 

Since 2015, thanks to the assistance of the non-governmental Holt International Children’s Services in Vietnam, Khanh Hoa Social Service Center has delivered support services to vulnerable young people through 5 sub-projects on nursery education, care for vulnerable pregnant women, livelihood assistance and school fee support totaling more than VND2 billion to help children in need.

 

 

 

A woman N.P.M, 32, was abandoned when she was pregnant. She sought help at Khanh Hoa Social Service Center. She was provided psychological support; offered babies’ clothes, milk and tonics during pregnancy. She also received care when giving a birth. Since 2017, Khanh Hoa Social Service Center has built plans to help 30 vulnerable women to overcome challenges when going through pregnancy alone, according to Tran Hiep, Director of Khanh Hoa Social Service Center.

 

The family of Bui Thi Hanh, Vinh Truong Ward, Nha Trang City, is so poor that her children face the risk of dropping out of school. In early 2019, Khanh Hoa Social Service Center offered her VND67.5 million to help with her livelihood as well as support her children’s education. “We are so happy to receive the grant from the project. I have used it to rebuild our house and invest in a dumpling cabinet to earn a living. We always try our best with the hope that our children can continue their schooling,” she says.

 

In addition, Khanh Hoa Children’s Fund has also developed a support model for poor families in Ninh Sim Commune, Ninh Hoa Town. Each family was provided an economic development loan worth VND4 million. The assistance is to help poor families overcome difficulties in a joint effort to minimize school-drop-out and child labor, says Luu Thi Ngoc Lien, Acting Director of Khanh Hoa Children’s Fund.

 

Challenges

 

There are 4 public social service institutions, SOS Nha Trang and 14 non-public public social service institutions which are taking care of 702 orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children in Khanh Hoa. Most of them have benefited from periodical health examination, education as well as activities for all-round development, psychological and life skill training. 100% children who are social support beneficiaries are provided monthly grants and community-based care in accordance to the State’s regulations.

 

Over the past years, much priority has been given to child care and protection tasks by leaders of Khanh Hoa People’s Committee at all levels for the sake of children. In the first 6 months of 2019,  98.65% of vulnerable children were reported to have received care and education. However, there must be some other children at risk of abandonment and neglect but not yet found and offered timely assistance. Besides, the funding for the child care and protection is limited, thus affecting activities as well as financial assistance for the needy. In addition, more livelihood assistance is in need, according to Luu Thi Ngoc Lien.

 

Moreover, the network of collaborators in villages and quarters has stopped working since 2016 so information about children has not frequently updated, thus affecting the support plans. Some other difficulties are due to children’s service workers having different tasks concurrently. Therefore, there are difficulties in developing target programs for children as well as using child care management softwares in the locality.

 

Khanh Hoa Department of Labor, War Invalids & Social Affairs has submitted a project to strengthen child protection and care collaborators in the province in the period of 2017-2020 to the province. When approved, the project is expected to provide more favorable conditions for child care and protection work, according to Vo Binh Tan, Vice-Director of Khanh Hoa Department of Labor, War Invalids & Social Affairs.

 

Thanh Truc 

Translated by N.T