VIETNAMESE PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION
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Mission Statement
The mission of the Vietnamese Professionals Association (VPA) is to improve the quality of life and educational experience by providing financial assistance and compassionate services on healthcare and education to poor individuals, families, and students in need. VPA is a non- profit organization established on March 5, 1999. We hold a strong sense of commitment to make a meaningful contribution to the Vietnamese communities. Our mission includes financial and compassionate service assistance in regards to education and healthcare. We have been providing scholarships for about 10 -15 Vietnamese students per year. In recent years, our charitable work has been vigorous, to name a few, Cataract Surgery for elders, Mobile HealthCare for poor community villages, Well Water Pump for remote villagers, Daily Rice Soup for poor patients, School Starters for elementary student uniforms, supplies and registration fees, Orphanage for financial support, and Scholarships for college and vocational students.
About This Cause
WHAT WE DO We are driven by compassion for those people in need of health care and education, but who cannot afford it. In each community or project, we partner with the local people, schools, or local organizations. Together, we collaboratively execute the charitable work activities, deliverable, and solution opportunities for the Vietnamese people. Our core focus is to provide a mean for the people to become self-efficient, improve health and augment educational experience. The VPA is funded by charitable gifts from individuals throughout the U.S and VPA members who donate their time, resources and money to give back to the community we serve. We allocate 100% of charitable funds to carefully-selected projects/activities. All operating expenses are also funded by VPA members. Following are the projects in our portfolio. I. MOBILE CLINICS The purpose of the Remote Area Clinics is to provide general health care and cataract surgery programs at the rural villages at no charge to the patients. We coordinate with local organizations and negotiate medical costs with local doctors and nurses who care to prevent pain and alleviate suffering to low-income, impoverished patients. Our local volunteers worked on screening patients and arrangement of service locations, and our U.S volunteers and doctors monitor the quality of services as well as cost effectiveness performance. I a. Basic Healthcare – The services include medication and examination for diabetes screening, physical checkups, colds/flu, allergy, infection, injury and pain, bronchitis, parasites, malnutrition, or eye exams. For farsighted or nearsighted eyes, we provide glass frames and vouchers to patients to get prescription glasses at local optometrist. We have provided services to various areas such as O-Mon (Can Tho), Da Nang, Phan Thiet, Nha Trang, Ban Me Thuoc, Tam Ky, and Quang Nam. We gave free medicine to treat illness and vitamins to patients. For each visit, we have approximately 300 - 500 poor villagers. One or twice a year, we provide trips for free medical care with the support from doctors, nurses and pharmacists. We helped establish the Eastern Medicine Clinic with an initial cost of $2,000 USD and then assist the clinic with $500 USD annually if fund is available. I b. Cataract Surgery Our cataract patients are related to the aging process. Cataract surgery is one of the most cost-effective treatments that we can offer to our elders, who have little or no hope of surgery due to such a little income. Our local doctors and nurses perform surgical and medical eye needs where blindness or visual impairment can be easily preventable. Our service is a no-cost surgery to the patients. For each eye surgery, we pay a very reasonable price of $50 USD. This fee goes towards medication (eye drops, medicine), replacement lens, and transportation as our patients are often too poor to even afford a ride to the service center where they can receive their cataract surgery for free. Each patient has already been screened by the local community doctor, and each is given a medical certification indicating that he/she requires cataract surgery to prevent blindness. If they are unable to afford surgery, they are referred to our charitable center and have their names put on a waiting list for free cataract surgery. We provide services in Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, My Tho, Tam Ky, Vinh Chau, Soc Trang, and Vinh Long. To date, over 2,000 eye surgeries were performed. The project has been so successful that we try to sponsor the surgeries for at least 30 patients per month. However, due to the high number of demands, we currently have more than 100 people on the waiting list. As funding becomes available, we can start cataract surgery for these patients. Each patient who receives surgery has their picture taken before and after, and a thank you letter with the patient’s picture is sent to the donors. This way, each donor can see the direct impact and benefit of their donation. II. ORPHAN CARE We care about the child who is homeless, not loved and has no parents. We partner with Vietnamese orphanages to provide funding and assistance for food and education on child development. We communicate with caregivers and help supplement caregivers’ meager operational costs to sustain appropriate care and love. We try to eliminate the interruption of orphan care services and high turnover of caregivers as much as we can. We have provided funding support to orphanages in Tam Ky, Ban Me Thuoc, Da Nang, Nha Trang, and Da Lat III. LOVING SOUP BOWL Many low-income villagers go hungry most of the time. When these people, mostly elderly, are sick and in the hospital, a simple rice soup bowl helps lift up their spirit and energy. We partner with three local hospitals and clinics in Tam Ky, Quang Nam to provide rice soup breakfast every morning for the last 20 years, regardless rain or shine. The Loving Rice Soup Bowl is our small gesture to lessen the suffering for the poor and sick seniors. Our cost for the Loving Soup Bowl is $2,000 U.S annually. IV. ELDER CARE There are non-profit nursing homes in Vietnam for poor seniors; however, these organizations are also struggling to operate on meager budgets, or small funding from benefactors. When some organizations ask for help, we try to provide funding as much as we can, depending on our limited fund. We have provided funding to senior organizations in Tam Ky and Quang Nam. We hope to be able to have more funding in the future to help the elderly live healthier, happier "golden years." In 2010, we worked with local organization to build 5 Safe Harbor Home, a residential room-like home to provide short-term stay for homeless individuals and families. V. COMMUNITY CARE We provide an array of community-based projects for under-served people experiencing hardships. We did various projects throughout the last 20 years as follows: Va. Food Relieves Imagine seeing your loved ones or even yourself starving or going hungry most of the time. For many poor villagers, this is a grim reality. We partner with local volunteers, organizations and temples to distribute rice, sugar, noodles, flour and money gift to the poor in various cities such as O Mon, Can Tho, Tam Ky, Quang Nam, Nha Trang, and Dalat. We also participate in Flood Relieves and feeding lunch to patients at Mental Health Center. Vb. Well Water Pump Clean water is a dream for remote and poor villagers. Understanding the serious effects of having no clean water on the health of the people, we have championed the Well Water Pump project. Basically, a well pump is a pump that extracts water from an underground water source. The pump has different size and length depending on the depth of water body underground and soil ground. We partner with local vendors to get necessary materials and labor to construct the well water pump for poor villagers. To date, we have constructed more than 500 water wells with pumps of less than $65 each in many poor families mostly in rural areas of central Vietnam who seldom have clean water all their lives. Additionally, since 2008, we built 24 cement wells at the cost of $200 each in the remote, poor villages. Vc. Village Road In rural areas, dirt roads are common transportation pathways. These roads in the raining season create challenges and accidents to farmers and their carriages to carry rice bags and produces. With the labor from local residences, we built 6 paved cement roads where farmers can transport rice and farm products instead of through muddy roads. The project costs for 6 cement roads were about $12,000 USD. VI. EDUCATION Education can open door to a brighter future and transform a person’s life, however, it can be very difficult for a poor student to access to education. We are committed to finding and funding the most promising students, who are desperately need financial support to gain education. VI a. College Scholarship Scholarships are awarded to students who attend the 4-year college. We partnered with the Vietnamese local professionals to evaluate student applications for selection. Awards are distributed based on demonstrated academic, financial situation, strong characteristics and enduring values. In the past 20 years, along with other charitable organizations, we have provided about 500 scholarships. Each scholarship is $150 USD per year, per student at the Saigon Polytechnic University. Recently, due to a high cost of education and to effectively provide the continuous financial support throughout the college years, instead of having students to apply on a yearly basis, the most qualified students can also be awarded a funding of 4 years with a higher amount of up to $500 each year. Students are also funded for doing community projects such as designing and building bridges in rural villages (monkey and cement bridges), solar cooker and solar motor cycles. With the labor from the locals and students, the bridge projects typically cost about $2,500 USD for each bridge. VI b. Elementary Schools Every child is entitled to a basic education, but for many underprivileged children the reality of childhood is harsh. Elementary schools in poor villages have minimum supplies, education materials, equipment, furniture and in short supply of teachers. In 2000, we partnered with the local organization to build a simple, basic elementary schools in Vinh Binh at the cost of over $6,000 USD. We also provided 5 other village schools in Tam Ky, Ban Me Thuoc, Soc Trang, Phan Thiet and Nha Trang with furniture, education supplies and uniforms at the total cost of approximately $10,000 USD. In 2011, together with the local organization in Quang Nam, we helped build the elementary school at the cost of $25,000 USD. Noted that, some students we supported from K school to college have become lawyers and doctors who are now joining the organization to help the others that make us feel very proud of the students we support.