What is happening at SJ Vietnam this month (updated 15/10/08 18:15 GMT +1) ?

SJ Vietnam projects on Google maps

A postcard from Care Team in Singapore

Thank you very much for all your assistance and support that were given to our team during stay at Vietnam. We had a great time working along side with all the camp coordinators and local volunteers. All oft hem have been very helpful and enthusiastic in carrying out their duties.They took care of all our students well and taught them many things (such as Vietnamese songs, cooking, teaching etc). Their concern and caring nature touches the hearts of all of us and we are going to miss them very much!

Do send our regards to all the directors / teachers / staff / children at the school and center. We hope that we have done a good job and make a difference to the life of the children in Nam Dinh and Hai Duong.

Lastly, if there is any thing we need to improve on, please feel free to revert to us. We look forward to future collaboration and wishes SJ Vietnam team all the success in your future workcamps.

What will you do next year ?

World Heritage project is over !

SJ Vietnam is looking for Vietnamese and international volunteers for the UNESCO World Heritage project \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Patrimonito rolls up the sleeves\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" in Halong Bay (22 Sept to 4 Oct )

SJ Vietnam workcamp in Halong Bay have been selected as pioneer of the World Heritage Volunteers 2008 and to make use of the Patrimonito mascot, symbolizing young heritage guardians, to educate the public about World Heritage protection and conservation. The project gathers participants between 16 and 30 years old from different countries around a common project requiring collective effort and involvement.Specific international volunteer projects organised around the theme of World Heritage. The initiative aims to provide opportunities and tools to sensitize youth organisations and groups to World Heritage, operating in the sphere of non-formal education in general and using voluntary service as a method in particular. It is jointly coordinated by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and the Coordinating Committee for International Voluntary Service (CCIVS). The project activities have been designed according to the needs of the host community and puts strong emphasis on contact and dialogue with the local population. This two weeks youth workcamp will acccommodate from ten to thirty participants. congratulation to all the people who preprared this great project ! More information: http://www.unesco.org/ccivs/patrimonito.htm. Send your application form to worldheritage@sjvietnam.org

soon, we will have a special web site for this project: http://www.sjvietnam.org/worldheritage

The first Arte Diem in Asia has started this week !

Check our special web site at http://www.artediem.sjvietnam.org

Need 2 talented webmasters for Arte Diem (Vietnamese or Foreigner)

The volunteers will be full member of the national and international Arte Diem preparation team. He or she will be helped by other active SJ Vietnam staff members. He or she will design and update daily the Arte Diem website during the event (2 weeks). Everyday, he or she will have the great chance to visit all workshops of Arte Diem in order to interview volunteers and artist to write articles and make video / photos to publish on the website at the end of the day. Together with preparation team, he or she will manage the communication of the event (search engines, links to other web site, mailing list, etc). The volunteer needs to understand the needs of the project in term of communication, to be able to design a new web site quickly (the web site has to be online beginning of September),to know very well HTML and PHP, to be able to make video / pictures and to publish them, to know English. The volunteers will have to respect the evening dead line to post the new articles.

more info : call for Arte Diem web master and project description here

Arte Diem receives the support of ArtVenture

Art Venture will support the SJV - YAP - NVDA project for a total of 20.000 $ ! Thanks a lot to the local and international preparation team for the serious of the work and to Art Venture for their trust. But now that we have the budget, the hardest work is coming and we need all your help ! Call us to know what you can do to help us to implement the first Arte Diem in Asia the coming September !!!

Arte Diem will start 8 september, we still need local and international volunteers !!!

WE ARE LOOKING FOR 40 ASIAN / EUROPEAN VOLUNTEERS + 10 Vietnamese Artists !!!!!

. ARTE DIEM is a project about promoting culture of peace and solidarity through art. The idea is to gather young people from different backgrounds and countries to reflect about art and how it can serve as a tool to build a peaceful society. The international youth exchange project has been organized annually since 1999 in different countries (in Europe and outside of Europe). For the first time ARTE DIEM will be organized in ASIA by

SJ VIETNAM and YAP with the collaboration of NVDA !!

We will receive 40 young people from mainly from Europe and Asia. The International volunteers, Vietnamese volunteers and professional artists will use art as a tool to promoting a culture of peace and dialogue.Through discussion, creativity, learning and workshop, barriers cultural and even languages incomprehension, can be broken down and new ideas can born in order to promote peace through art and voluntarism. Volunteers will also share life experiences of local population who are disabled, disadvantaged or live in poverty.

SJ Vietnam is looking for young, enthusiastic, open-minded and creative volunteers, who wants to help us to prepare this wonderful project.

If you are interested, please contact us under: Miss Anja, Arte Diem 2008 coordinator : artediem@sjvietnam.org .

To join our preparation team forum: http://artediem.sjvietnam.org

To read about the last ARTE DIEM 07 read: http://www.wf.is/artediem/

Read the 2008 project description here

Looking for Vietnamese long term volunteers in France

Our French partner Solidarit�s Jeunesses France is currently sea

rching for volunteers for two of our LTV projects in France, those of Le Centre de Beaumotte (LTV-SJ-02), and Le REV (LTV-SJ-07). The Projects: The Centre de Beaumotte is located in the Franche-Comt� region in the East of France, and deals in social work centered around manual projects. Le REV is located in the town of Beauvoisin, in the South of France. They also work on social re-integration through manual projects. We are searching for: 3 Volunteers for each project who would begin in September 2008 and stay for 1 year. 2 Volunteers for each project who would begin in February 2009 and stay for 6 months. Conditions: Volunteers will have accommodation, food, health insurance (accident/liability) to cover incidentals , and pocket money in the amount of 105? each month BUT you have to pay yourself your plane ticket (and visa). Please let our coordinators know as soon as possible if you are interested: out@sjvietnam.org

We need Vietnamese volunteers to join us at the W

orld Blood Day in Hanoi (14th june)

The World Health Organization called on all Vietnamese to become regular voluntary blood donors. The World Health Organization believes that safe access to blood is a universal human right. But this goal is often not achieved - especially in Vietnam. Viet Nam still only collects about 40% of its total need for blood.That 60% shortfall costs lives. It is one of the greatest gifts you can give.? It helps save lives !!!!

Contact Miss Vu Loan: Fangdo1986@yahoo.com or her mobile: 095 813 8103. More information about the World Blood Donor Day in Vietnam

Miss Ngoc and Stefania send us a postcard from Seoul

Stop to worry about your favourite workcamp coordinator, Miss Ngoc is still alive in Seoul where she is visiting our Korean partners (IWO and UNESCO-KNCU) to reinforce our partne

rship. She sent us a postcard of her and Stefania (see below)...

When a workcamp ends up with a marriage: The story of Stefania and Sung Jae: two international SJV volunteers

My name is Stefania, I come from Italy and I was a SJ Vietnam volunteer joining a workcamp roughly 2 years and half ago. It was in Vietnam, Hanoi, and it was the beginning of august. At that moment I was completing a stage in an Italian Ngo but for 2 weeks I took part in a SJ Vietnam workcamp focusing on takin? care of the Fishers? Village on the Red River. The next of this love story HERE

?

List of workcamps and long term opportunies for Vietnamese volunteers

This week, and for the first time in Vietnam,SJ Vietnam will publish the list of the voluntary opportunity abroad in Vietnamese.Around 1000 projects are waiting your help all over the world. Thanks to Vietnamese volunteers who are doing the translations !!!! Until this great publication, you can visit our online database but in english only HERE

SJ Vietnam works only with non profit organizations

We have discovered some unfair travel agencies in Europe and USA are trying to sold SJV workcamps for extremely high price (up to 1000 $ / workcamp !!) only to provide our free infosheets. SJ Vietnam works ONLY with national and non profit volunteer organizations abroad, as CCIVS & Alliance members.Our participation fees are maximum 180 euro / month + fees for your national sending organization (between 0 and 350 euro max depending of your country).Our projects ARE not activities for alternatif tourists, our street children are not cute attractions ! If you are victim of such companies, please contact imm

ediately pierre@sjvietnam.org ( in Belgium, French / English)

Medical advices for volunteers

A new section have been added in Workcamp and ltv sections providing practical info for our future volunteers in Vietnam

Workcamp infosheets have been updated !!!

We have updated our workcamp calendar and infosheets !!! Don\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t forget to download them here before to join your project.

SJ Vietnam is back from Alliance and ETAI meeting in France

Phuc and Pierre, director and president of SJ Vietnam, are back fro

m Alliance meeting in France where they had the opportunity to present SJ Vietnam to many other workcamp organization around the world. We hope this meeting will open new opportunity for foreign volunteers to join our activities and for vietnamese volunteer to be volunteers abroad. Pierre and Phuc have also met our great team of friends \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Un ETAI pour le vietnam\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" to prepare the ETAI summer mission, re-enforce our common project management and finish to prepare the hosting of our first EVS. THanks a lot to ETAI for their incredible welcome. See you very soon in Hanoi !

Long Term volunteer opportunites

We have updated the list of our LTV opportunites for international volunteers here

Our ex LTV sent us a postcard From Amsterdam

how are you all in Hanoi? We (Hanh, Arno, Stefan and David), ex-LTV, have m

et this weekend at Arno\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s Place close to Amsterdam to see each other again, talk about our beaaaauutiful time in Hanoi last Summer, look at pictures, eat loads of tasty things etc... We also visited a traditional windmill where Arno used to volunteer when he was small. And we made you a little photo, which is attached :) Best wishes from the Netherlands and cu soon Hanh, Arno, Stefan and David

THE FIRST VOLUNTEER IS COMING TO HAI DUONG WELFARE CENTER

Hai Duong welfare center was established in March 2002. With about 1000 disabled and disadvantaged children between the age of 6 to 12 and coming from many parts of Hai Duong province. On 27 of February SJ Vietnam will send the first long term volunteer to Welfare Center and Hannah kindergarten. Their work will help the disable children in the center to playing game, teaching English, painting and organizing leisure activities. They will work in welfare center for 6 weeks then we will have another volunteers to continue their work. We wish a lot of success to this new project !!!.

XUAN THUY NATIONAL PARK PROJECT IS OPENING

Xuan Thuy National Park, 150 kilometers south-east of Hanoi, was designated as Vietnam\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s first Ramsar (an intergovernmental treaty signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971 which provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources) site in 1989. SJ Vietnam will run a project in the Xuan Thuy National Park, we prefer to organize English classes for local people and encourage them to communicate in English. On 22 of February 2008 we will go to survey this area for running well the project and the project will start in 2009.

Gallery pictures of NDVA meeting

The last NVDA meeting in january was a great opportunities for lo

cal volunteers participating such an important international meeting, to know more about our workcamp network and how it works. The meeting was also a chance for us to present to other workcamp organizations our daily work and our projects. Others new pictures have been added in our Photo Section about NVDA meeting, Christmas workcamps, and many other pictures. Enjoy it here

T?t collect for children in Pediatrics Hospital

When we enjoy happy Lunar New Year holidays, thousands of children in Pediatrics Hospital have to suffer their injury at cold sick-rooms. They can?t enjoy Tet Festival with good candy, nice traditional cakes at cozy family union. Should we collect some candy, cakes and small red pockets of lucky coins to present the children at 3pm on 10th Tet (16th February)? SJ Vietnam is collecting these things from 12th to 15th Feb at our office, No 10D, lane 28, Tay Ho street, Hanoi, Vietnam. Tel: 04.7195080.If you are foreigner and have no idea what could be \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"T?t\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\", read this article

Looking for two Vietnamese volunteers to become English tutors!!!

SJ Vietnam is recruiting 2 Vietnamese volunteers to be English tutors with 2 German volunteers for disadvantaged blind people. The teaching schedule will be2 mornings per week from 9.30 am to 11 am starting on 18th February. If you are interested in this post, please contact SJ Vietnam office at tel: 04.7195080 or email: info@sjvietnam.org. Please pass the information for your friends.

Leaders from all over NVDA network trying to make water filters (NEW VIDEO)

SJ Vietnam hosted the general assembly of NVDA network in january 2008. During one of our workshops, the leaders builded (or tried ?) to make some water filters with us... Watch the result...

SJ Vietnam with the collaboration of the french students \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'Un ETAI pour le Vietnam\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" is running a project to give fresh water to poor people living on the red river since 2004.

Watch the video here

We are going to Alliance meeting and meet ETAI in France

In March, during 10 days, SJ Vietnam will go to present his projects and activites to 40 workcamp organizations present at Alliance meeting in Sete and Paris (France). Miss Phuc and Mr Pierre will represent SJV. Beside this meeting, it will be a great opportunity to meet again our friends from \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Un Etai pour le Vietnam\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" in their city, Toulouse. ETAI and SJV will host an \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"European Volunteer Service\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" (EVS) in summer 2008.

Video news from our Belgian guests \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Les anciens du Patro\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"

We have just received the videos from the Belgian groups \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Les anciens du Patro de Tournai\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" who came to visit us last november. They were 18 people, mostly retired, all old members of an youth organization in Tournai (a city in Belgium near France border), who decided to visit Vietnam and our projects in an Alternative way.Thanks to our volunteer Mr Hai who was their great guide during 3 weeks. . Thanks to all of them for their visit , it was a pleasure for SJV to host them. We hope to see them again somewhere in Hanoi or Tournai. A bient�t ! (To watch these videos, click on the section \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Photo / Video\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\")

Welcome to NDVA representatives to the 7th TNW!

SJ Vietnam, in collaboration with VFP, is happy to welcome the 40 asian reprentative of NVDA coming the General Assembly from 13th to 22 th january. SJ Vietnam very happy to host this very important event for the future of our workcamp organizations in Asia. No other networks of international voluntary service NGOs have such kind of General Conference & Assembly organised in a workcamp style! Let\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s make it a successful !!!

UNIS school support Hai Phong School? of the Blind and Boat Children through SJ Vietnam

At this time of year many people around the world are preparing for Christmas. In many cultures and many religions, giving gifts of all sorts is a way of sharing and showing that we care. This year the UNIS School will again be involved in helping to provide joy and happiness among some of the less fortunate children in Vietnam. Between now and Wednesday 12 December, ALL students from Discovery to Grade 12 are asked to assist by bringing in a gift for these less fortunate children.

Elementary School: You can bring in your wrapped gift anytime to the Elementary Office and place it under the Christmas Tree. Please label your gift by giving information which will help us determine if it is for a boy or girl (or a uni-sex gift), the approximate age of the receiver and what the gift is, for example: Boy Aged 8 to 10 years, toy racing cars. It is recommended that your gift can cater for blind children ? something that the blind children might be able to use their other senses with (listening and feeling). You can encourage your child to use their own pocket money for this gift giving! Thanks so much for giving from the Elementary Student Council.

Middle/High School Students: Gift Giving Middle/High School are also being asked through their homeroom and advisory periods to bring in donations for the group SJ Vietnam. They look after children living near the river, some under the Long Bien Bridge. Amanda Abel and Lesley Peacock run an after school Community and Service Programme with CAS students to provide activities for this children, who are in great need. Encourage your Middle/High School child to find a gift for these kids: toothbrushes/toothpaste, clothing, toiletries like soap/shampoo, books in Vietnamese, toys or basketball/soccer balls: these are just some of the ideas. Wrap them or send in a cloth bag that the kids can resuse. We?ll be sending you more ideas but keep the presents coming in to homerooms from next week.

More information? Email to Amanda Abel at mscounselor@unishanoi.org

SJ Vietnam 3rd Anniversary, Christmas and New Year ceremony !

On 24th December (Christmas day), SJ Vietnam will celebrate our 3rd Anniversary with big events performed by our volunteers. We will organize an international voluntary work camp with volunteers come from Korea, France, Japan, Romania, Canada, Belgium, Germany, Australia, America and many active Vietnamese, which will last from 20th December to 2nd January, 2008. There are lots of festivals for the occasion combined with Christmas and New Years for volunteers, disadvantaged people and children at Fisher Village, National Pediatric Hospital, disable center, blind school, orphanage center, etc.

We would like to share our special happy news to less-fortuned children and people by giving them gifts, smiles, fun, enjoyable time with our big care and love for them.

We hope to appeal your enthusiasm, energy, ideas and constructive participation for an incredible successful work camp.

For more information, please contact our work camp coordinator, Miss Ngoc at workcamp@sjvietnm.org

SJ Vietnam and VFP will host the next NVDA meeting in january 2008

From 13th to 22nd January, 2008, SJ Vietnam honorly co-organize NVDA TNW and GA with NICE and VPV in Hanoi, Vietnam. There will be 35 participants who are key members of the voluntary organizations taking part in the program. Through colorful work camps and training (Water Filer for Fisher Village, organizing games for children in Hospital, playing with Agent Orange children, etc), we will share and learn precious experiences from each others and improve our project quality for better contribution of developments in Asia-Pacific. We will also discuss about future tendency and policies of voluntarism in our region. We strongly believe that our small volunteering dedication together will make the world changing positively. Mr Pierre, our wonderful Belgian webmaster, is looking for an \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"e-journalist\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" and a photograph to create a daily electronic newspaper to follow the event. If you would like to contribute your innovation and motivation to this program, please contact our secretary at info@sjvietnam.org (Mr Sna). Read here our special section for more info

SJ Vietnam wish you a Happy Volunteers\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\' day !

Dear partners, friends and volunteers all over the world, Today, 5th of December is Volunteers\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\' day. We would like to send you our greeting card and thankfulness for your precious support to SJ Vietnam. We highly appreciate your great work for peace, sustainable development and solidarity. We wish you a Happy Volunteers\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\' day with lots of smiles, energy, enthusiasm and dedication for volunteerism.

Blind school students celebrate their shiny new school rooms

On October 29th 2007 a group of local as well as international volunteers started a painting project in Hanoi\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s only blind school, Nguyen Dinh Chieu. More than two weeks later, on November 14th 2007, we could call our mission accomplished. But from the start...

In the beginning of October, Robert, a German short term volunteer and I (for those who don?t know me, my name is Christian.. :-) visited the blind school, and during our stay we talked about its shabby visual appearance. Especially the 5 dormitory rooms were in very bad shape; the old paint had started to fall off the walls and they were very dark and gloomy. This was when the project of painting these rooms was born? After putting a team of local and international volunteers together, the financial part had to be solved. SJ could, due to a limited budget, only provide 200.000VD, so another solution had to be found. Luckily, the parents of Marilou, a Dutch longterm volunteer, decided to fully support this project financially (around 5.700.000 VD!) and for this we are very thankful!

The first days our team faced some challenges, due to the fact that the old colour wasn?t easy to get off the walls, and parts of the walls were falling off. This dusty preparation took us long time and everybody was happy when we finally started the painting process. Our volunteers worked in a team of up to 12 people, and during the two weeks we covered nearly 1100 qm of surface area with white paint. As well as painting the walls, we touched up the doors and windows of the domitories. To thank us, the blind school students performed a short concert and expressed their gratitude towards our work. The blind musicians were all very talented and our volunteers greatly enjoyed the concert. In conclusion I would like to thank all the volunteers who put so much effort into this project. I think we all had a fun time while doing a great job!

Welcome back to our wonderful country, Mr Pierre De Hanscutter

After 1 year leaving, Mr Pierre De Hanscutter,co-foundator of SJV, is very glad to be back in Vietnam and join daily work at SJV office. His parents and their 13 friends also come to Vietnam for their traveling, the first alternative trip organized by SJV volunteers. SJV organized a welcome party and presented them about Vietnam. The party was so lovely and impressive with loud singing of children and the nice people. We enrich our knowledge of Vietnam and Belgium now. We are thankful very much for Pierre?s parents and their friendly visit. All the benefices of this trip will be used for SJV projects. Moreover, in the first day back, 90% of materials were destroyed by Pierre. However, our volunteers are quite happy to welcome him for very good chocolate he brought from Belgium. Children at Fisher Village School are also excited to play and talk to him. They are waiting him to bring more candies and chocolate.

Miss Janelle Vincent from Canada and Lena Crema from Germany are in Hanoi

On 1st of November, we are happy to welcome a new long-term volunteer from our Canadian partner, Cadip Ms Janelle and Ms Lena from Kloping, Germany. They will participate in our Fisher Village and Pediatric hospital projects. They will have orientation with our Vietnamese volunteers in Hanoi then they will work at our projects next week.

SJ Website Content Update

Oct. 12 2007: Maybe you have already noticed the various smaller and bigger changes that were done to the SJ Website within the last two weeks. Thanks to two German volunteers the website look was tweaked in many ways to make it more appealing to potential volunteers. They changed the navigation structure so that volunteers can now find all relevant information under the new navigation point \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Projects for Volunteers\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\". All info sheets on our activities have been updated so that we can provide you with the very latest information on all projects. Now we are hoping for many new applications to our projects! If you would like to help us updating the website, please apply for the Website Assistant Coordinator Camp (short-term or long-term). For this very interesting and demanding position HTML knowledge is necessary.

Island Village children on the big screen

Oct. 5 2007: 20 floating houses located on the Red River in Hanoi were the set of the film \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Green Meadow\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" that premiered yesterday. Seven children between the ages of 10 and 14 were given a video camera that they kept for two months recording their daily life. Out of this footage Phan Y Ly created a powerful film showing that despite the hardship the villagers are facing every day, their children see the village as their heaven, which is filled with love and care. SJ Vietnam supports the Island Villagers in many different aspects, e.g. by teaching the children, handing out medicine and supplying water filters.
Further information about the film project

Great Mid_Autumn Festival for disadvantaged children in Hanoi and Hai Duong with SJ Vietnam volunteers.

Today, 20th September, SJ Vietnam are very happy to organize Mid-Autumn Festival for 2000 disadvantaged children in Ha Noi and Hai Duong, Vietnam. Our excellent short-term and long-term volunteers dedicated 2 weeks at a workcamp to make star lanterns and masks for these children. We wish that our children to be able to enjoy the great Kid\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s Festival as all other children in Vietnam could have. The Festival would be full of singing, dancing, cakes, fruit and of course smiles and laughter of the volunteers and children.

Miss Kristine from Solidarit�s Jeunesses France is in Hanoi

Miss Kristine, staff of our french partner and friend organization \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Solidarit�s Jeunesses\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" arrived in Hanoi. Go to SJV office to wish her welcome.

Miss Phuc sent us a postcard from UK

We arrived in Scotland (Edinburgh) yesterday afternoon. At the beginning, we thought it was the most beautiful place we have ever visited. However, 5 minutes later, it rained heavily. We couldn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t see anything so far even though we have a free day.Fortunately there are many good beers and whisky here. I will try to taste all of them for you.

SJ Vietnam will host the next NVDA General assembly

The host organizatin and the summary of the program for the 7th TNW (Training & Networking Workcamp) and the 6th GA (General Assembly) of NVDA has been decided. Date: 13-22 Jan. 2008 (13-15 Jan.: optional for the members),In and around Hanoi, Vietnam,Organizers: SJV, VPV and NICE

Congratulation our excellent children!

After one year tiredlessly studying with the support and tutorting of our great local and international volunteers, 7 children at Youth House School are qualified to go to normal schools. All others can go to an education center. Eight children got very good result of their study and they are awarded. Here is the award. Congratulation our excellent children. Thanks so much our volunteers.Here are award of our children at Fisher Village school for their good study (given by Education center) http://picasaweb.google.com/infosjvietnam/AwardOfChildrenAtYouthHouseFisherVillageSchool

SJ Vietnam volunteers are happy back from Greenway (Thailand) workcamp.

3 volunteers of SJV are successfully took part in a workcamp in Thaland with Greenway where they were trained as camp leaders. They learned valuable experiences and skills there. They are so excited to lead our coming workcamps to apply their learning. We wish them nice workcamps and leadership skills. SJV are also thankful Greenway for the great cooperation. There are pictures and videos of SJV volunteers\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\' workcamp in Thailand

A year on after Hanoi, a reflection on the meaning of International Solidarity

When asked by Pierre De Hanscutter to write this mini article on my time in Hanoi, one year later, I hesitated for one pure reason. No matter how I try, I cannot do justice to bring alive the emotions I felt and the sights that I saw whilst I was in Hanoi for a brief period of two weeks. Therefore, my objective in this article is to compare and to contrast my feelings now with my experience of then, to draw learning experiences and to encourage others to take part in such schemes, despite the ups and the downs during the fortnight as an international volunteer. Click here to continue...

Our volunteers are back from Sa Pa

Watch their pictures on the picasa blog of David, one of our LTV from Germany here

The new infosheets are there !

Our great team of Long Term Volunteer has finished the update of our famous SJV infosheets. Read them here !SJV - General Information.pdf SJV - About SJ Vietnam.pdf SJV - About Hanoi and Vietnam.pdf

Coming workcamps

Our great workcamps SJV0735, SJV0736 and SJV0737 will start on 16th July.We are waiting on these new interesting workcamps a team of international volunteers coming from Spain, Canada, Korea, Germany, France, Japan, Denmark, Italia and, of course, from Vietnam ! Our international and national volunteers will help, together, disadvantaged children in National Pediatrics Hospital, blind students and street / poor children at Fisher Village School.
One week later, the Bilateral workcamp will start mixing young Korean and Vietnamese volunteers. As last year, a group of 18 Korean volunteers loving Vietnam will join us with lots of enthusiasm. Korean and Vietnamese volunteers will help disadvantaged children. Beside the voluntary work, we will have chance to do a lots of cultural exchanges : food , traditional dance and clothes, songs, language introduction, etc. This workcamp will be a precious chance for young Vietnamese and Korean volunteers to be ?Volunteer for sharing, learning and being responsible?. This exchange will begin on 24th of July to 4th Of August. For more information about this exchange, please look at our draft schedule and description of this workcamp here. If you wish to join one of these workcamps, please send your application form to the international secretary at info@sjvietnam.org.

Miss Lan goes to France and Belgium as SJ Vietnam volunteer

On 10 of June, SJ Vietnam excellent volunteer/coordinator, Miss Lan was selected to be a \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Special volunteer\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" in Asia-Europe Youth Volunteer Team-Building Partnerships (AEVTP) 2007. She will leave for France and Belgium this 10th July. Lan will take part in 2 workcamps about Immigrant until 31st August. When Lan will come back to Vietnam, she will contribute to one of our projects with similar theme to help disadvantaged at Fisher Village. We wish her an enjoyable and successful trip!