'Happy School' in Chau Hoi (Quy Chau)

That was the innocent and happy confession of Nguyen Viet The, a 5B student, at the closing ceremony of the "Happy School" project and the "Reading Culture Promotion Festival" recently held at Chau Hoi Primary Boarding School for Ethnic Minorities, Quy Chau district.

In the exciting and joyful atmosphere, the ethnic minority students of this mountainous district joined volunteers from TH Group units to participate in many interesting games.

Happy School

Originally a school with many difficulties in terms of material conditions, in previous years the school could not afford to organize boarding for students. “Many times I felt sorry for the students but did not know what to do, they were still young, their homes were far from school, the mountainous roads were difficult to travel, so they were late for school, even arriving to school with bruised hands and feet, and muddy clothes from slipping and falling was very normal”, a teacher shared.

The 2023-2024 school year is the second year that the "Happy School" project has been jointly implemented by VSF, and the first year that the project has been implemented in Nghe An province and Chau Hoi Primary Boarding School for Ethnic Minorities.

The Happy School Project is a long-term project implemented by VSF from the 2022-2023 school year in Lao Cai and Son La provinces. In the 2023-2024 school year, the project continues to bring meaningful activities to Nghe An province with the support of TH Group and Bac A Commercial Joint Stock Bank.

The project is a comprehensive solution to contribute to improving facilities and enhancing the capacity of teachers and students in schools in disadvantaged areas. This is one of the next efforts of the Vietnam Stature Fund to contribute to the National Target Programs and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In addition to spending 380 million VND to build new kitchens, bathrooms and install televisions in classrooms, the project also organized 19 training classes and 1 communication session for students and teachers, with contents such as: Communication skills through drawings, wall newspapers (wallpapers); gender equality for students; positive discipline and gender sensitivity in teachers' teaching.

With these contents, the project implemented by the Vietnam Stature Fund (VSF) in coordination with the Department of Education and Training of Quy Chau district is considered to have brought a happy and beneficial learning environment to ethnic minority students in the highlands.

The training contents, which were deployed for the first time, were all familiar and necessary knowledge, such as proper nutrition, oral care; injury prevention, drowning and first aid for children; recognition and support for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The experts conducting these training sessions were lecturers and doctors from Hanoi Medical University within the framework of the cooperation program on community medicine between the Vietnam Stature Foundation (VSF) and the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union of Hanoi Medical University. More than 1,000 students, parents and teachers have benefited from these meaningful communication and training activities.

In addition, the project also awarded 20 scholarships with a total value of 60 million VND to students from families with difficult circumstances and affected by storms and floods, and donated books to school libraries in the area. Ms. Le Thi Huyen - Principal of Chau Hoi Primary Boarding School for Ethnic Minorities excitedly said: The project's activities will help teachers improve their capacity, learn new skills to serve teaching to improve efficiency; at the same time, create a healthy and useful playground for students, encourage positivity and self-awareness; students will also study in a happier environment.

"The Fund for Vietnamese Stature has implemented many training courses to improve the capacity of teachers and students in the school. This not only contributes to improving the quality of teaching and learning for both teachers and students in the school, but also plays a role in guiding the planning of teaching in the following years. In particular, thanks to the support in facilities from the project, the school is qualified to organize boarding for students in the 2023-2024 school year," said teacher Le Thi Huyen.

The Happy School Project is a new project model of the For Vietnamese Stature Fund and will be implemented from the 2022-2023 school year. According to Mr. Ngo Van Tu - Director of NASU Sugarcane Company (a unit under TH Group): In the second year of implementation, in addition to upgrading the facilities of degraded schools, we have coordinated with new partners to bring useful, practical training courses that are closer to the teaching and learning needs of all teachers, students and parents; contributing to improving the quality of teaching and learning, so that every day at school is a happy day.

Choosing to implement the project in Quy Chau district - where NASU Company has sugarcane raw material area - also demonstrates our social responsibility for the local socio-economic development."

“Through the project activities, we hope to contribute to creating a safer, healthier and fairer learning environment for both teachers and students, where children have the best conditions to develop comprehensively both mentally and physically, contributing to the development of their homeland in the future. We are very pleased to receive positive feedback, high appreciation from the school, and acceptance from students, thereby completing the project's goals,” shared a representative of VSF.

Festival to Promote Reading Culture

This year, on the occasion of Vietnam Book and Reading Culture Day (April 21), VSF also coordinated with the Department of Education and Training of Quy Chau district to sponsor 5,256 books worth 250 million VND to 15 primary schools in the district.

In particular, the Vietnam Association for the Protection of Children's Rights sponsored 223 books on the topic of positive discipline and guidance on child care for parents, children's rights and psychological support for sexually abused children. In addition to funding the project, Bac A Commercial Joint Stock Bank also donated 45 books on "Being smart with money - Avoiding worries" on the topic of personal financial management to schools.

According to the representative of the Department of Education and Training of Quy Chau district, 5,717 primary school students across the district will benefit from this book donation. The books donated to primary schools are carefully selected, with rich and diverse topics, and will provide students and teachers with practical and useful knowledge about science, nature, society, positive discipline and personal financial management, especially topics related to project activities such as gender and gender equality, positive discipline, school counseling, happy schools, etc.

“The donated bookcases will help diversify the books, making students more excited every time they come to the library. This is also the basis for schools in the area to implement activities such as reading hours to promote reading habits for students, contributing to nurturing reading habits and cultivating new knowledge for students. This is the foundation for developing the reading movement at each school unit, contributing to creating a general reading culture in the entire education sector of the district,” said a representative of the district Department of Education and Training.

At the Happy School closing ceremony and “Reading Culture Promotion Day” held recently at Chau Hoi Primary Boarding School, students enthusiastically participated in dozens of interesting and exciting games. A communication contest using drawings, wall newspapers and comics was held with the participation of 16 students from 5 clubs.

The works focus on reflecting on key topics such as school violence, personal hygiene and environmental sanitation, gender equality, etc. Besides games that help students exercise such as tug of war, sack jumping and blindfolded drumming, VSF also organizes many other games to help students learn about gender equality, clean water - sanitation - environment, proper nutrition and encourage reading culture.

“The reading movement is one of the criteria that is of great concern. The school has 100% of students who are ethnic minorities, so building a reading culture environment in the school is to help them improve their ability to read Vietnamese. Having received books from the project, in the coming time we will continue to promote and expand the reading movement. In addition to the school's general library, we will arrange small libraries in the classroom. Every week, librarians will coordinate with homeroom teachers so that students can take turns borrowing books from the library in class at the beginning of class, during recess or in extracurricular activities,” said teacher Le Thi Huyen.

With the mission of contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that Vietnam committed to the United Nations, the Vietnam Stature Fund always implements programs and activities based on the principles of respect and fairness.

Some typical activities related to promoting equality are implemented through projects such as: Happy School, Gender and gender equality with young reporters, Scarlet sails, For mothers and babies - For Vietnamese stature, Female reporters take action to reduce plastic waste and plastic pollution,...

Phu Huong