It is estimated between 30% to 50% of children with disabilities are living in severe poverty with little or no prospects for their future. Many cannot even go to school (although they are capable of learning) due to lack of funds to pay tuition, physical barriers, or societal acceptance. Their parents face a difficult choice—work and leave their children alone, perhaps even confined to a bed or wheelchair, or stay at home without income.
COV is responding to this problem, thanks to a grant from the Ford Foundation and our partnership with the Danang Hai Chau People’s Committee and local health, educational and social service experts. By providing wrap-around support utilizing a case management system a care plan is written for each child that includes one or a combination of the following: education or vocation scholarships, surgeries (orthopedic, heart, eye, etc.), assistive aides (wheelchairs, prosthetics, hearing aides, glasses), medicine, therapy, housing with indoor accessible bathroom facilities, and/or support for the parent to earn a living.
Program Summary
The Hope System of Care is a program that integrates and coordinates services to children with disabilities. The goal is to help these children develop to their highest potential.
Central features of this system of care include a Care Management Team, case managers, and community social workers. The Care Management Team consists of experts (key program and service representatives) who meet to review the child’s situation and recommend a care plan. The case manager assesses the needs of the child and his/her family and arranges, coordinates, monitors, evaluates, and advocates for a package of multiple services to meet the child’s complex needs. Community Care Workers support the Case Managers at the ward level. If possible, Community Care Workers are family members of handicapped children. An Advisory Committee provides general oversight and advocates for support of the program.
The Children Served
Children served have one or more disabling conditions. They are poor, with incomes typically below $20 USD per month, and are between 0 to 25 years of age. Lastly, at least 50% of the services are directed toward girls, ensuring equal access.
Disabilities are categorized as follows:
| * Difficulty moving |
* Difficulty hearing and speaking |
| * Difficulty in learning |
* Difficulty seeing |
| * Strange behavior (mental illness) |
* Epilepsy |
| * Excretory system and other basic living skills difficulty |
* Significant skin difficulty |
| * Physical deformity |
|
Goals
- Have a positive impact on handicapped children and their families
- Develop a model that addresses the needs of all children with disabilities
- Build upon local expertise and political will to build a long-term infrastructure of social services
Why Vietnam and the Danang Region
While the exact incidence of children with disabilities and the specific cause of each child’s disability is unknown, the Vietnam government estimates that there are 3 million people in Vietnam suffering from the affects of Agent Orange, and the Vietnam Red Cross estimates that 150,000 Vietnamese children are disabled due to their parents’ exposure to dioxin.
Dioxin is one of the ingredients in Agent Orange, a defoliant sprayed on Vietnam from 1962 to 1971 during the war. A number of areas or “hotspots” with high residual dioxin still exist today, most notably around the perimeters of former bases where there was intensive and repeated close-range spraying, including Danang.
Many US, international, and Vietnamese scientists link exposure to Agent Orange to high rates of digestive ailments, neural disease, skin diseases, and cancers, and exposed women show high rates of premature birth, spontaneous abortions, stillbirths, molar pregnancy, uterine cancer, and children with severe birth defects such as missing limbs or deformities, spina bifida, deafness, and other impairments.
For more information about Agent Orange/dioxin:
The Ford Foundation
War Legacies Projects
The Last Ghost of War:
Agent Orange Fact Sheet
Make Agent Orange History
Partners
Hai Chau People’s Committee
Hai Chau Department of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs
Hai Chau General Hospital
Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange of Hai Chau
