Local nonprofit spreads love of art and music in Vietnam

The per capita income in some poor areas of Vietnam is the equivalent of $1 per day. School children are known to walk an hour each way to school, and many don’t continue their education beyond the fifth grade.

Rock-Paper-Scissors Children’s Fund, a non-profit founded by Sara Stevens Nerone of Peace Dale, gives impoverished Vietnamese children an opportunity to explore art and music – something they may not get otherwise. This summer, her family and several South Kingstown youth volunteers will travel to Vietnam to help run the programs and teach music camps to children.

“In Vietnam, the kids, especially those living in poverty, don’t have opportunity like kids in the United States do to take music lessons,” Stevens Nerone said. “They don’t have money to buy instruments and they don’t have money to buy art supplies. So we thought this was a great way to be able to provide that opportunity to kids who have those interests.”

The group of nine will leave July 17 and return to the United States August 4. The volunteers will teach approximately 300 children in three villages, Son Tan, Suoi Cat and Cam Phuouc.

The half-day camps will focus largely on what Stevens Nerone referred to as “ethnic minorities” in the country. Vietnam has about 54 ethnic groups in different pockets of the country, but approximately 90 percent of the population are Kinh, the majority group. The remaining groups, the minority, are often the most impoverished, Stevens Nerone said. Rock-Paper-Scissors partners with the Vietnamese Red Cross to identify the areas of the country to focus on.

Rock-Paper-Scissors has a year-round program in Vietnam. The organization sponsors Vietnamese teachers, who instruct approximately 22 violin and cello students and 15 art students in the village of Cam Duc. In the summer, Stevens Nerone’s family helps with this program, and volunteers will prepare the Vietnamese students for a concert for the local government. The volunteers also will teach larger camps in the three other villages.

“When you’re playing together, everyone has something to do; everyone has a part,” said Hannah Beekman of Peace Dale, a volunteer making the trip. “The end result is something that’s really nice.”

This is the first year they will bring the small group of volunteers, all South Kingstown residents: Beekman, Kaitlin Pothier, Robyn Pothier, Marina Cariello and Moses Leonard-Fitzmeier. Stevens Nerone’s daughters, Sophie and Phoebe Nerone, and her partner, Patrick O’Brien, an intern with Independent Newspapers, also will make the trip.

“I want to travel,” Beekman said. “But I don’t want to just go and be a tourist; I’d like to do something that can make a difference.”

The story of Rock-Paper-Scissors began about 15 years ago, when Stevens Nerone adopted her daughter, Sophie, in Vietnam in 1999 and later her daughter, Pheobe. In 2011 and 2012, Stevens Nerone returned with her two daughters and O’Brien to volunteer for seven months in Vietnam.

“While we were living there, Sophie plays the violin and Pheobe plays the cello, and they were practicing, and some of the kids heard them,” Stevens Nerone said. “They wanted to learn how to play. So that’s how we got the idea of starting a music school. We actually taught one of the kids there for seven months and now he’s a teacher.”

When the family returned, they were so inspired by this trip they founded the Rock-Paper-Scissors Children’s Fund. The organization raises funds through private donations and sales of crafts and Vietnamese merchandise online and at local events.

“It opens your eyes to another country,” Pheobe Nerone said of her time spent in Vietnam. “In America, here people are privileged to have a house and stuff; there maybe other people don’t have a place with a roof, or shelter.”

Rock-Paper-Scissors also sponsors a donation program called “bikes for girls,” which provides bicycles to Vietnamese school children who walk up to an hour to school each day, Stevens Nerone said. The organization will donate approximately 200 bicycles this summer.

“After being there, and really seeing the poverty in the country, we just really felt like we needed to do something,” Stevens Nerone said. “When we talk to the kids, we really see how they feel about playing music, how they feel about art, and how they feel about the music community we have created.”

Source: The Independent

Gender mainstreaming: Laws, Policies, and Actions

On May 13, 2014 at 8:00 am the Gender Working Group (GWG) of Ho Chi Minh City held a regular meeting conducted by Ms Do Thi Thanh Thuy, who is a lecturer and collaborator at the Gender and Society Research Center (GAS) at Hoa Sen University.

The meeting took place in a conference room at the KOTO Center at 151A Hai Ba Trung Street, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City. Participants were GWG members, most of whom are foreigners working for International Non-governmental Organizations in Vietnam. The meeting focused on legal issues, policies and activities involving gender mainstreaming in Vietnam.  At the beginning of the meeting Ms. Dana Mc Nairn, a GWG leader, summarized the issues discussed at the last meeting and announced that the next meeting would be held in July. Then Ms Thuy began her presentation by sharing how gender mainstreaming was defined in other places and in Vietnam in which she emphasized that the definitions are not different in terms of content.

The comparison was aimed to help international gender activists understand and easily apply gender mainstreaming on development projects in Vietnam. Ms. Thuy also emphasized that the Vietnamese government pays very close attention to gender mainstreaming in its development programs and policies. At the meeting numerous approaches were also discussed.  Several gender mainstreaming approaches were taken in the development programs and laws of the Vietnamese government such as the gender equality law, the national strategies for the advancement of Vietnamese women, the strategic plan to alleviate poverty, MDGs and VDGs indicators etc... Additionally, she highlighted the important role that education plays regarding the empowerment of women and the gender equality enhancement process in Vietnam. Specifically, Ms. Thuy talked about the gender and development courses at Hoa Sen University which aim to raise gender equality awareness and woman empowerment among the young Vietnamese generation. The meeting also involved a very spirited discussion regarding questions from the international members such as: how to connect and apply gender mainstreaming with social development strategies.  What are the primary roles of the Vietnam Women’s Union?  How are people’s perspectives changed about gender equality? The meeting closed at 11:00 am in a friendly and sharing atmosphere among GWG members.

Source: GENDER AND SOCIETY RESEARCH CENTER