Change From Top to Bottom

Hoang Duc Quyen, Nguyen Ngoc Thach, Hoang Hoai Thuong, Le Thi Hong Nhung, Bui Thi Viet Ha – Vinh Linh and Huong Hoa ADPs.

The kindergarten was in a terrible state – the playground was muddy during the rainy season and dusty in the dry one, frequent floods damaged what furniture and equipment Trieu Thuong Preschool possessed and none of its nine village facilities had a kitchen to prepare meals for the children.

That was before 1997, when the kindergarten regularly ranked as one of the worst in Trieu Phong district in Quang Tri province and over 30 percent of local preschool-age children did not attend the institution.

“We had to ask the villagers to use their home kitchens to cook lunch for our pupils,” recalled the preschool’s current principal, Ms Phuong Lan. “It was a difficult situation for both us and the children. Their food was very plain, so most of them didn’t finish their meals.”

It is different now. The kindergarten meets national standards, has enough equipment and space for almost 170 children under six – which is 85 percent of the total number of children of that age group in the region – and the dirt playground has been replaced with a concrete one that helps to prevent pupils from becoming grubby and having accidents.

“I couldn’t have dreamed that such big changes would happen,” added Ms Lan, “and none of them would have been possible without World Vision’s support.”


World Vision has also organised training courses on nutrition for the teachers and helped them plant a variety of vegetables in the preschool’s garden, meaning the youngsters receive healthier and tastier meals. This development has contributed to the fact that only seven percent of the pupils now suffer from malnutrition, which is a sharp decline from 20 percent in 1997.

Another success is World Vision’s school-based disaster risk reduction model that has been put into practice. As such, our organisation has helped the teachers to construct storage facilities above ground level that they can use to place chairs, desks and other items to prevent them from being damaged during the inevitable flooding that affects the area every year.

The teachers have also been taught disaster prevention and mitigation actions and been invited to other training sessions – co-organised by World Vision and the local education department – on preschool teaching methods.

One young pupil gave the changes a vote of approval. “I love to go to school. I have a lot of friends there and there are many toys for us to play with that I don’t have at home,” said five-year-old Kieu Nhi.