“Youth Against Covid 2021” campaign
“Youth Against Covid 2021” campaign refers to a campaign launched by Center for Sustainable Development Studies (CSDS) with funding and companionship from Irish Aid. The campaign aims to seek and support the action initiatives of Vietnamese individuals or youth groups in an attempt to solve the problems directly and indirectly triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic in current society or within the project group itself. Thereby, the campaign years to encourage and motivate the community spirit, contribute a small action to join hands with the Vietnamese government and people to win the pandemic.
During the kick-off of the “Youth Against COVID 2021” campaign, CSDS received 17 proposals to address various issues in the community during the pandemic. All proposals lead to a common purpose towards a safe, developed and sustainable society and simultaneously support disadvantaged groups, especially in the current difficult situation. Due to the urgency of coping with the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the community, CSDS swiftly conducted a survey and selected suitable projects to participate in the YAC 2021 campaign.
List of selected projects in YAC Campaign 2021
- The Vaccine Passport – The Incredibles Project
- Companionship – YUU Organization
- Smiles for Kids – Center for Service Learning at Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics and Finance (UEF)
- Rice for the Mong people in Che Cu Nha – Na Na: Buy seasonal products you need
- Com 5k – Hanoi Com 5000 VND Club
- Com Sai Gon – JOY FOUNDATION
- Strong strawberry Pretty strawberry – (Vietnam Organization for Gender Equality – VOGE)
- The Rainbow Class – Sign Language Training Center, Hanoi
- Maintaining deaf children’s learning – C5 Class of Deaf Children
- Supporting sign language interpretation for the deaf community – Nang Moi Sign Language Interpreting Service
- The Blue Window – Cham Project
1. The Vaccine Passport
The complicated Covid-19 outbreak has resulted in the increasing need for the Vaccine Fund and to ensure that the Vaccine reaches the most vulnerable groups in society, the Government is expected to raise significant contributions on Covid-19 vaccine fund. Moreover, a large number of children in middle-income families fail to have the opportunity to access an interactive English environment, leading to a lack of skills in English interaction, which increasingly has a negative impact on the foreign language ability in the future.
Faced with that situation, The Incredibles Project has implemented The Vaccine Passport project by organizing online courses for a small group of 5-7 students/class following a weekly teaching program with different topics. The class not only helps students enhance their English, especially their speaking and listening skills but also creates a safe online learning environment at home. The money collected through the project’s teaching and donations will be transferred to the Vietnam Vaccine Fund to partly contribute to the country’s pandemic combat. Website/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thevaccinepassport
Website/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thevaccinepassport
2. Companionship
“Companionship” is a project to support for underpriviledged households in Plei J’Drap village, Dak Nang commune, Kon Tum city. The village, located in the south of the city, is the area where witnessed the devastating tornado in 2018 causing great damage to people and property, and was severely affected in the 2020’s flood season. With the population being mainly poor and near-poor households, if the pandemic continues, many low-income families in the village will not be able to overcome this difficult period owing to food shortages. The malnutrition rate among children of ethnic minorities will also increase after the stabilization period 2015 – 2019.
The “Companionship” project will organize a food support program for impoverished families in Plei J’Drap village, Dak Nang commune, Kon Tum city as well as equip people with disinfecting equipment to ensure their health during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Website/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yuuorganization
3. Smiles for Kids
The project “Smiles for Kids” was founded by Center for Service Learning at Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics and Finance (UEF) towards the Truyen Tin Shelter – the principal object of the project. The shelter (at 923/5 Tan Ky Tan Quy, Binh Hung Hoa A Ward, Binh Tan District) is a place to nurture over 20 orphans adopted by Sister Maria Nguyen Thi Cu from the early stages of their lives. COVID-19 has halted activities, thus children at the shelter cannot go to school and communicate with the surrounding society. The number of center staff remains insufficient to organize teaching and other skill activities for all children.
Confronted with that situation, “Smiles for Kids” organizes online teaching sessions through Microsoft teams for over 20 children at the Truyen Tin Shelter aged 7-12. The project does hope to contribute to supporting children with a playing and learning environment during the complicated pandemic. In addition, the project also expects to connect students, who are studying online at home due to the Covid-19 outbreak, with the community in a new form suitable for the context, helping students experience and learn from a new way of learning – learning from the community.
Website/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/servicelearninguef/
4. Rice support for the Mong people in Che Cu Nha
Che Cu Nha commune, Mu Cang Chai district, Yen Bai province is one of the three communes with the most terraced fields in Mu Cang Chai. However, farming on terraced fields produces very low yields and remains labor-intensive not to mention the impact of the COVID-19 driving many people unemployed & unable to make ends meet. This leads to a lot of households being undernourished and falling into debt.
With the desire to support to solve difficulties, the project “Rice support for the Mong people in Che Cu Nha” offers a solution to support rice for the 7 most difficult Mong farmer families in Che Cu Nha commune, Mu Cang Chai district, Yen Bai province with 47 people in total, all of whom are in a state of running out of rice, have borrowed money from relatives, neighbors and familiar shops. The support figure for the whole project is 2.8 tons of paddy.
Website/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nana.hmongvietnam
5. Com 5k
Com 5K Project was implemented in the context that many groups of freelancers were stuck in motels, construction sites, etc., suffered from hunger, and lacked living conditions during the quarantine period in Hanoi. In addition to some groups receiving basic necessities to ensure basic living, there still exists many individuals and groups who have not received support for many objective reasons, triggering a shortage of necessities, a state of hunger, leaving their lives pressured and seemingly abandoned.
Hanoi Com 5000 VND Club conducts out Com 5K project in Hanoi city by supporting 200 free meals per day for 13 days (from August 25 to September 6), equivalent to 2,600 meals, for freelance workers and individuals who are starving and lacking necessities for basic living; sharing, accompanying and helping them overcome material and spiritual troubles during the social distancing period of Hanoi.
Website/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Com5k.hn/
6. Com Sai Gon
Com Sai Gon is a project carried out by JOY FOUNDATION to provide 2,000 free meals a day for low-income workers in quarantine areas, and nutritious meals for medical staff in Covid-19 treatment hospitals.
For a long time, Ho Chi Minh City applied Directive 16 to control the pandemic, causing the low-income class to be seriously affected with the risk of food shortages during the implementation of Directive 16. Moreover, the medical staff in Covid-19 treatment hospitals needs to be provided with nutritious and healthy meals with the aim of ensuring their health to treat patients. Com Sai Gon Project was established with the desire to partially support the people and medical forces to overcome difficulties together.
Website/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/journeyofyouth
7. Strong strawberry Pretty strawberry
In addition to the need for food, hygiene and reproductive health are also essential needs of people. However, support packages for people during the pandemic only focus on food and medicine. We inadvertently ignore other essential needs in life and of the most vulnerable targets in society: women & children – like milk, tampons, diapers, laundry detergent.
The support package “Strong strawberries Pretty strawberries” is initiated by Vietnam Organization for Gender Equality – VOGE with the aim of supporting the main target groups: women aged 15-50 and children aged 0-3 with the difficult situations, whose income is greatly affected by the pandemic and indications for prevention. With this support package, VOGE hopes to partially reduce worries about nutrition and physiological hygiene for women and children in disadvantaged households and groups of workers greatly affected by Covid-19.
Website/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/voge.vn
8. The Rainbow Class
From the beginning of 2021 until now, the outbreak of the 4th Covid-19 pandemic has caused most educational institutions to stop offline teaching and redirect to online teaching. All students at all levels have to study at home, including deaf children. Deaf children have to face many difficulties compared to other normal children in studying on their own and acquiring knowledge at home, especially children aged 6-12 because they cannot read and write Vietnamese fluently and their ability to use Sign Language remains limited.
To increase support for the deaf students, Hanoi Sign Language Training Center implemented the project “The Rainbow Class” with the aim of providing 2 art and craft courses for families with deaf children with the participation of both parents and children. The project aims to provide more useful and appropriate learning resources for deaf children to meet the children’s learning and playing needs, and at the same time create a common space for parents to improve abilities of sign language and connection with deaf children, especially in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Website/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ngonngukyhieuhanoi
9. Maintaining deaf children’s learning
C5 Class for deaf children, founded by their parents and teachers in June 2019, refers to a learning group with the goal of creating a suitable learning environment through sign language. Due to the impact of the pandemic, the classes of deaf children face closure. Moreover, online learning also has abundant difficulties for both students and teachers.
To support both teachers and students at the same time, the project “Maintaining deaf children’s learning” was founded to help teachers focus on contacting students and finding appropriate ways to continue teaching. Besides that, the project also helps students update their knowledge about the pandemic and prevention, and encourages them to be happy and optimistic when following the social distancing procedure at home.
Website/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/daytrediecbangnnkh
10. Supporting sign language interpretation for the deaf community
The language barrier is considered one of the reasons why deaf people have limited access to information, especially during the pandemic. When they cannot contain the Covid-19 information from reputable sources, they probably get the information wrong from friends, social networks, etc. Without any support from their family or interpreter, they will face obstacles in following the isolation procedure or treatment at the blockade area, isolation area, or field hospital.
With the desire to help and share difficulties with the deaf community, Nang Moi Sign Language Interpreting Service has launched a project named Supporting sign language interpretation for the deaf community. The videos focus on the overview of Covid-19 as well as how to treat and take care of themselves when they become F0, F1, etc. Through practical actions, not only will the project support the deaf during the pandemic, but the project also wants to build a channel for access to reputable, accurate, responsible, and sustainable medical information for the Vietnamese deaf community in the future.
Website/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NangMoiSLI
11. The Blue Window
“The Blue Window” is a project implemented by Cham Project aimed at people with disabilities who are encountering psychological difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project aspires to become a companion channel, providing psychological support and spreading positive information and stories in the disability community to many people with disabilities with a window – a space – a listen. In their conversations, “The Blue Window” will focus on small things, daily concerns, thereby sparking emotions that make people with disabilities strong.
“The Blue Window” is also a space for students (especially students from the Faculty of Psychology and Community) to participate in supporting activities, thereby they are able to apply their knowledge as well as nurture their enthusiasm to work for the community. From connection during the difficult time, Cham Project wishes to spread more positive emotions towards disadvantaged groups so that no one is left behind.
Website/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/champroject2019
Details about Youth Against Covid 2021: https://csds.vn/chien-dich-youth-against-covid19/