The Nguyen Khuyen School is located in a disadvantaged economic area with mainly ethnic minority pupils, and poor infrastructure. Children are also often absent to assist their families during the harvest season. We implemented this project at the Nguyen Khuyen school with the aim of helping the children to maintain their interest and motivation for learning.
Dak R’la is a remote commune in Dak Mil District, Dak Nong Province, which is about an 8 hours drive from Ho Chi Minh (over 375 km). “5 tang” is one of the poorest hamlets in Dak R’la commune, located on a hill where the majority of the population are minorities, and the local Nguyen Khuyen School was established as a place of study for children of ethnic minorities in this area. Teachers face a constant challenge to maintain pupils’ learning opportunity due to the regions economic disadvantage; life in Dak R’la is mainly taken up by agriculture, and many pupils are often absent to help support their families. In order to support their learning, teachers regularly travel to each house to help mobilize and encourage children to go to school.
Nguyen Khuyen School has 25 teachers and 424 pupils from kindergarten to secondary level, and the facilities include 8 classrooms, 1 kitchen room, 1 library, and 2 restrooms (although these face temporary closure when there is no water).
After the first survey in July 2017, we understood the difficulties faced by the teachers as well as the pupils. Many questions were raised and ideas discussed, and then with a strong desire to create more motivation for the children, we decided to implement this project for the Nguyen Khuyen School.
The Nguyen Khuyen School is now implementing a 150 million VND project to renovate the school library and to construct a well.
Many challenges were faced during the project implementation, but the potential benefit to pupils and teachers of having a larger and more equipped library, and a new well with clean water, spurred the project team on to overcome these difficulties. After nearly a year of conducting the survey, planning and implementation, our project has been completed and the facilities are now fully operational. It was with great pride and joy that on 7 May 2018, SEN officially handed over the library and the new wells to Nguyen Khuyen School.
Our team also presented 20 gifts to 20 pupils for their academic achievement in their studies, in order to acknowledge their efforts. A brief initial training course was also provided to all teachers and the school managing board.
Our ultimate reward is the happiness which blossoms in pupils’ eyes as they touch new books, their smiles as they see the powerful water erupting from the wells, the feeling of warmth in their hearts; we realize that when love is shared, happiness will spread.
