Dear Friends of Rock-Paper-Scissor’s Children’s Fund,
It’s good to be sending you an update; I hope that you all are staying safe and well these days.
Our art program in Vietnam has opened again, and the kids are going back to school next week. Like here in the US it’s been up and down for students, either schooling remotely, or in person, or not at all if they don’t have access to the internet. We have a mix of those students, especially in the village where none of the kids has devices. Schools closed in Vietnam at the end of January and reopened from May-July with in-person learning. We have been holding our art classes since May and between the three programs continue to support over 70 kids. In August, there was another outbreak of Covid19 in the city of Danang. Our art classes in Hue had to be put on hold for another couple of weeks, but we opened again this weekend, with most of the students eagerly appearing on the first day back.
This summer, we started a summer tutoring program for minority girls in the village of Son Tan. The classes included Physics, Chemistry, Math, Vietnamese language, and English. Altogether 27 girls and one boy took part in the six-week program, and 14 of the students had been participating in our art program in the village since they were very young. All of the girls will be leaving home this week. They will be attending a boarding school for 6th through 9th graders. Three of the kids from our art and tutoring program will be going into the 9th grade this year. High school in Vietnam starts in 10th grade, so this is a big year for these three students to pass the entrance exams. The art classes and the mentoring by our art teachers have made them grow into confident, smart, young adults over the last seven years. This is all due to you, our donors; supporting these kids could not be happening without you. It means a great deal to them, and perhaps one day some of you will be able to travel to meet the kids, and do a little painting with them!
I hope you enjoy the photos this month and again, thank you for everything.
Sara
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Dear Friends,
A lot has been going on since our last update to you all in January, as I know is the same for all of you personally. We sincerely hope that you, your family, friends, and neighbors are all well and staying as safe as possible during the pandemic. Even in just a few months, times have changed drastically for us all, with so much uncertainty for what is to come.
At this time, Vietnam has been reporting having only around 300 cases of Covid19 with no deaths in the country. News reports state that with experience gained from dealing with the 2003 SARS and 2009 H1N1 pandemics, Vietnam's government started organizing its response right away in early January. Schools have been closed since the Tet Holiday that began at the end of January, and they have only recently re-opened on May 4th. Thousands of people have been placed in quarantine camps around the country and on April 1st the government issued a stay-at-home order country-wide which stayed in place for approximately four weeks and was just lifted last week.
During the lock-down our staff was hearing from some of our students in the village of Son Tan that the families in the village had been cut off from food sellers who travel up the mountain and that many of the families were desperately in need of food, unable to travel outside of their homes. Because of this, we made a plan with our partners in April to provide supplies for 120 of the neediest families in the village, providing them with rice, noodles, beans, and fish sauce that would last most families 3-4 weeks during the lock-down. These are just a few photos of our staff distributing the supplies.
For our art and music students in Hue and Cam Duc, we decided to re-open the programs at the same time that the schools opened on May 4th. Like all schools in Vietnam, we are following strict protocols for social distancing, holding smaller classes and providing masks, and hand sanitizer as the students come in. Our school houses have large, wide doors that open fully to make an open-air space as well so that kids can paint and play music under a roof outdoors.
We are so proud of our staff in Vietnam and of course all of our wonderful students. Thank you so much for continuing to be a part of their lives.
Please take care!
Sara
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Hello Everyone,
A quick update on our art program!
Giao has been our program manager since we started the non-profit. She teaches English at a local High School in Cam Duc where one of our art and music schools is. She grew up in the small town with her sister, brother and parents and stayed on to teach English at the high school. When we first approached her about working for us, Giao was a little skeptical about the usefulness of us focusing on the arts, but she has grown to love the arts herself, and can see the amazing benefits for our students and some of hers who now attend our classes. Giao herself is an incredible singer!
In December, Giao, had the chance to participate in a small workshop in Ho Chi Minh City with the Obama Foundation’s Girls Opportunity Alliance. The workshop participants included seven non-profits like ourselves, working in Vietnam trying to create change through the promotion of girl’s education. During this day, the group worked to identify tools and strategies to help overcome barriers that are common in Vietnam for girls accessing education.
We were so honored to be selected to participate being such a small non-profit! For Giao this was an amazing experience, and to add even more excitement to her day, she was able to meet Michelle Obama who was there in Vietnam visiting organizations working with girls!
We have a lot planned for 2020, including hosting a young, mural artist named Danae Brissonett, who is just amazing. Danae will be training four-five of our female art students on mural making, as well as working with all of the children creating wonderful masks and artwork. We have a lot planned!
Thanks to all of you who have supported and continue to support our art program. Two of our former students have now sold their works of art for over $300 each, and both of them are using the money to support themselves through college. Amazing how your donations and support have changed these kid’s lives.
Happy New Year and thank you,
Sara
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Dear Friend of Rock-Paper-Scissors Children’s Fund!
I’m sure that some of you may remember Trang from our previous reports? Trang started coming to our art class while she was in high school. We could see from her work that she had immense talent and a true passion to create. She put in as much time as she could to train and prepare for the entrance exam to the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts. We were not surprised at all when we found out she was accepted and had received a full scholarship. Not only being extremely talented, Trang is one of the warmest, grateful, and most generous young woman you could meet.
Each summer while in college, Trang comes home to Cam Duc and works with some of our youngest kids in the art program, bringing with her fresh ideas and new skills she is continuing to acquire during her time at school. This summer was no different, but her task was much larger in that she designed the art projects for our summer arts camp for more than 100 kids, with ages ranging from 2-16 years old.
For the first time in a very long time RPS did not have a volunteer summer trip. But that did not stop the summer camps in the village of Son Tan that many, many kids have grown to look forward to. Along with Trang, our older students, teachers, mentors and volunteers from Cam Duc stepped up to the plate and came through in such a big way, not just for us, but for the kids in Son Tan. Per usual, they showed us how compassionate they all are and what wonderful representatives of our organization they truly are. We are so proud, and of course the kids in the village had a blast as usual!
Not just a talented young artist in her own right, Trang is a teacher, open to welcoming any child into her space of creativity and put them on the path to create for themselves. We hope you enjoy the great collaborative artwork that the kids made at camp this year!
Looking ahead to next spring we will be raising money to host an amazing young mural artist from Canada who will be training girls in creating mural art as well as doing some great projects with the kids! We can’t wait to share more with you about this upcoming project. We are of course always looking for help to fund a project like this or help in finding potential sponsors. Please keep us in mind, and let us know if you have any ideas!
Thank you everyone-and happy fall!
Pat
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Dear Friends,
In May, I traveled to Vietnam to work on some of our programs there for two weeks and to visit and meet with our teachers. Our three art programs are going very well, supporting around 75 kids year round and many more in the summer months. Our program in Cam Duc, Vietnam, where we first started in 2013 supports 45 students who come to our little house on a side street in the town to take art classes and/or music classes. They have a great time together not only as students but as friends and supporters of one another outside of our classes.
Over the last six months, we have had a few new high school students join our program to be trained technically to take the college entrance exam to attend art school, post-high-school. They are all incredibly talented. A high school student from Rhode Island, who will be attending the Savannah College of Art and Design in September, traveled with me to Vietnam in May to teach art classes and take part in our bikes for girls program. Abbey spent time teaching technique in portrait drawing to our older students, and as you can see from the photos, they are all very talented. While we were there in May, we enjoyed holding extra art classes for our students in free color drawing, collage, and watercolor.
This year we are hoping to raise some additional money to be able to bring a well know French, female mural artist to Vietnam for two weeks to work with our students. Danae lives in Taiwan now and has done mural projects with kids around the world. We would love to have her work with us and will be raising the money to support her travel to Vietnam and a small stipend, the project will cost around $3000. As part of the project, we hope to select 3-4 college-age, Vietnamese, female artists to come and work on the project along-side Danae to learn how to develop murals and work with children on large art installations like this.
Thank you so much for your help and thank you to those of you who have chosen to provide a monthly, recurring donation, this is something that makes such a difference to us, that we can count on this monthly income to continue to buy art supplies and support our wonderful teachers.
Best to all of you and thank you for your loving support of our kids and of course, my family and our venture to share love through art in the world.
Sara
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