HumanTrafficking.org | Vietnam NGO: Ho Chi Minh City Child Welfare Foundation (HCWF)

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Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh City Child Welfare Foundation (HCWF)

Address

18 Pham Viet Chanh, Ward 19,
Binh Thanh District
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Contact Information

If calling from Vietnam:

Tel: 08 829 0567
Fax: 08 401 407

If calling from overseas:

Tel: +84 8 829 0567
Fax: +84 8 401 407

Email

hcwf@htco.com.vn

Activities

HCWF is a non governmental organisation, founded by a group of volunteers who are interested in social affairs and want to dedicate their time and donations to helping vulnerable and at-risk youth in Ho Chi Minh City.

Main activities:

Protection, care and education of dropout and early working children in the community
Protection, care of disabled children and providing physical rehabilitation for disabled children to help them integrate with regular schooling and the community.
Protection and care of children in especially difficult circumstances (street children, early working children and sexually abused girl children).
Communication and Fund-raising.
Providing training for project officers, and developing networks of volunteers in the community.

In addition, HCWF introduced its two new initiatives as models for other organisations to follow up.

The Green Bamboo Warm Shelter is to give street boys a safe shelter home, subsidised meals, basic health care, alternative education, recreational activities, opportunities to learn a job, and finally flexible conditions so that they can go back home to integrate with their own families. In case, they can not integrate with their families, due to family problems, HCWF creates opportunities for them to integrate with the community, like: a job to live in Ho Chi Minh City.

The Little Rose Warm Shelter is for girls who are sexually abused or at risk. This initiative offers accommodation, medical treatment, health education (to increase the awareness and prevention of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases), job training and employment opportunities to girls who want to escape or be protected from prostitution. The primary objective is to help them through their emotional and psychological problems and equip them with alternative skills, so that they can regain their self-respect and be empowered to face the future with confidence, either by returning to their families or by finding a stable job and living independently.

Areas of fieldwork:

HCWF has a core team with well-equipped technical skills for outreaching with an aim of early intervention for children who are at-risk on the streets, droping out of school, who have disabilities, and sexual abused.

Regarding the outreaching to girl street children:

As mentioned above, the Little Rose warm shelter is for girls who are sexually abused or at risk. This shelter is located in Tan Thuan Tay, the poorest commune in the district 7, close to an area renowned for prostitution and drugs. Many rural families fled here for protection during the war, and set up shanties.

Ever since, numerous homeless families have migrated to Tan Thuan Tay, thus increasing the high rate of unemployment in the area. Because of its favourable location on the Saigon River, near the port, but as an outskirt area, it gradually developed into a center for organised prostitution. Today, many girls under 18 are employed in brothels or are vulnerable to prostitution due to the environment in which they live.