I had a rather difficult childhood. My father and elder brother had heart disease, and my mother suffered from chronic headaches, so I went to school while also caring for my family. My father and elder brother died within a month of each other, and my mother passed away not long afterwards. The great loss of my loved ones made me realise how short life really is. That is why, for as long as I have breath, I will do as many good deeds as I can.
“Finding my calling” with children with disabilities in Vietnam
In the spring of 1990, I came to Vietnam for the first time to learn about and explore the country. Shortly before returning home, I set foot in Ben Tre province. There, I visited four families with young children with disabilities and saw how all four mothers showed sacrifice and love for their children with the most severe deformities, the least favoured in the family. They all cherished one wish: that their children with disabilities could go to school so that they would not become a burden on society later in life. I was startled to learn that in Ben Tre there were more than 1,000 children with disabilities, while there were very few schools for them, and some localities wanted to build schools but lacked investment capital. Then the image of a country with very few cars, and not even many motorbikes, has stayed in my mind to this day. Added to that was the sight of many people still walking barefoot, and many families whose children with disabilities could not go to school and had no chance to integrate into the community. All those images made me “find my calling” with children with disabilities in Vietnam, especially in Ben Tre, a province that could be said to be the most difficult of all the provinces in southern Vietnam at that time.
Having graduated from the Department of Child Psychology for Children with Disabilities at Kyoto University (Japan) and spent 28 years teaching children with disabilities at Kyoto Primary School, I became even more eager to help children with disabilities in Ben Tre province after receiving an offer of cooperation from Mr Le Huynh, then Vice Chair of Ben Tre province and now Chair of the provincial Association for the Protection of Poor Patients, People with Disabilities and Orphans. After Mr Huynh showed me documentary footage of Agent Orange victims and of people with disabilities, my heart was moved, urging me to devote my feelings and energy to these less fortunate children.
At the end of my trip to explore the country and people of Vietnam, I returned to Japan and immediately began calling for help for children with disabilities in Ben Tre province. I appeared on Kyoto Television to tell everything I had seen and heard about children with disabilities in Ben Tre. I also showed photographs and film I had collected on the subject. It is no exaggeration to say that that evening I woke up the sleepy atmosphere of the whole of Kyoto province. We Japanese also went through the pain of loss in World War II, and we followed Vietnam’s resistance against the US closely and admired it greatly, which was perhaps the basis for the response to my fundraising appeal. I continued to campaign for funding and applied to establish the Support Association for Children with Disabilities in Vietnam (SVCA) to make it easier to find more opportunities for children with disabilities in Vietnam. The association was founded not long afterwards, and I was elected Secretary General; membership has now risen to nearly 400 people.
Each member of the association contributes 40 USD to the fund every month. More important still is that everyone must be enthusiastic and active in fundraising to support children with disabilities in Vietnam. The association has also attracted international funding from the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. The help given by me and my fellow members has been repaid when we have seen with our own eyes the happy smiles and joyful looks of children with disabilities as they carry their school bags to class and enjoy talent classes suited to each type of disability. For me personally, I am truly moved when the children affectionately call me “mother” and show how much they miss me with gestures that are so close and dear.
Working hard to help children with disabilities recover their functions
On one chance occasion, I was deeply impressed to see a blind boy able to express his feelings on the piano keys, and a girl who found it very hard to speak yet wanted to express herself through her drawings… From that impression, and wanting as many children with disabilities as possible to recover their functions and live happily, I decided to bring the rehabilitation programme into the community. Japanese doctors and specialists volunteered to help me, using their days off to come to Vietnam and guide health workers and parents of children with disabilities in rehabilitation exercises for the children right at home. The results were truly surprising: many children who had lain paralysed in bed for 5 to 10 years were able to stand up on their own and take their first steps in life with a wooden crutch.
Always striving to do the best possible for children with disabilities in Ben Tre province, in recent years I and the members of the SVCA have been devoting all our efforts to two large-scale social programmes: the community-based rehabilitation programme (CBR for short) and the maternal and child health care programme (MCH). The CBR programme aims to bring together all children with disabilities in the province for treatment, training and rehabilitation of their neurological functions, arms and legs right in their own localities. The MCH programme aims to reduce the number of children born with deformities, disabilities or intellectual developmental delays, by caring for mothers from pregnancy through childbirth, and caring for newborns from birth until their first birthday. But to do that, each commune must have strong health facilities and health specialists, so my fellow members and I are working hard to provide equipment and training rooms for children with disabilities in each commune, open training classes for nurses, and raise awareness about caring for pregnant women and foetuses… When we have done such work in a commune, we call it a commune where the blank spot has been cleared. Ben Tre has about 160 communes, and we have cleared the blank spot in nearly 60 of them. In addition, I have also supported many other places in Ben Tre, such as Tran Van An Traditional Medicine Hospital, Nguyen Dinh Chieu General Hospital, Cu Lao Minh Regional General Hospital… with support amounting to hundreds of thousands of USD. At Tran Van An Traditional Medicine Hospital, I provided a great deal of medical equipment and invested in building a Rehabilitation Department at a cost of about 400 million VND.
At the ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of the Ben Tre provincial Association for the Protection of Poor Patients, People with Disabilities and Orphans, on behalf of the SVCA, I held a meeting with the provincial People’s Committee on establishing a comprehensive support centre for children with disabilities, with initial funding provided by the SVCA. This will be an early intervention centre, aiming to detect, treat and rehabilitate children early so that they can live a quality life, reduce disability, and ease families’ anxiety and worry. The SVCA’s specialists will also provide training and continue to advise the centre so that it operates as effectively as possible.
I always regard Ben Tre as my second home, so every winter and summer holiday in Japan, I am in Ben Tre, visiting people’s homes, going to each commune health station, and going into classrooms to meet and encourage health workers, teachers and students with disabilities. Through those meetings, I have grown ever closer and worked ever harder to help children with disabilities in Ben Tre have the chance to recover their functions and become useful people.
(According to Nguoi Bao Tro Magazine)