Santa Visits Khai Tri Orphanage for an Early Christmas Party

The Khai Tri Kids had a great time with Santa earlier today when Santa visited the kids with Library Project of Vietnam & Rotary Club of Winnekta Northfield who sponsored this Christmas party. We had wonderful support and help from the community who brought amble food for the 160 hungry kids.

More photos are upload to our Helping Khai Tri Kids facebook group.
Click here to see more photos on facebook.

Kids Reading in Library

We have been in An Giang province for a few days and stopped by Khai Tri this afternoon. Everything seems peaceful. One class was in session; the older kids were at the public school; a group of kids were watching a movie; a few kids were resting.

We noticed that the library door was open and about 15 kids were reading.

We also talked to the new Principle and assistant running the school and told them that Library Chuck is planning on visiting on Dec 2nd to give the kids a Christmas Party.

Memo of Understanding

The equivalent of a contract in Vietnam is an M.O.U.

You can click here to print a copy of the M.O.U. that was signed by Khai Tri Administration before we did the work.

On our last trip to Khai Tri Orphanage (Summer 2009), I gave my flip video to some of the kids and then uploaded a dozen small vldeos to my YouTube channel.

Today's visit was to provide some basic medical aid for the kids

We visited the Khai Tri orphanage today with some medical supplies. We think most of the cuts and infections are a result of poor hygiene and lack of proper adult supervision.



Currently there are only three full-time adult staff (Mr. Thi, Mr. Son, Ms. Nguyet). Mr. Son is in charge of the medicine cabinet and clearly is not trained with the skills that most Mother's in the U.S. learn the first year of raising a kid. The kids scrapes and bruises are much worst than last year or the year before.

Last July, we had a bus load of Doctors, Dentist & Nurses from Medical Aid for Vietnam and the kids were healthy. In 2007 on our trip, we noticed the kids were spotless and washed their hands before each meal. Now the lack of adult supervision is causing the kids hardship which could be easily resolved with more staff.

Spring 2009 Update from Vietnam

I am in Vietnam and taught a workshop on emerging learning technologies at An Giang University this week. There are several learning technologies that we discussed would be good to research for elementary classrooms.

We have purchase some of the classroom learning technologies for donating to a needy school in Vietnam that will be able to provide teachers skilled and able to teach with technology. Next week, I will visit Khai Tri Orphanage and publish my status report on this blog.

e-Learning for Kids Announces New Advisory Board Member

E-Learning for Kids (EFK, www.e-learningforkids.org), a global nonprofit foundation dedicated to providing free online learning for children 5-12, today announced the addition of Dirk Tussing, the Executive Director of the Learning Executive Exchange in Chicago, to its Advisory Board.

To read the press release which includes a reference to our project at Khai Tri, click here.

"Mr. Tussing has been involved with e-Learning for Kids for more than a year now and has supported the organization in numerous ways. These include championing the foundation with the Rotary Clubs from around the world, implementing the EFK courses in Vietnam at the Khai Tri Orphanage, building a social networking site for the foundation (http://elearningforkids.ning.com/) where one can join a group, view photos from schools around the world using the EFK courseware, download a poster about EFK in over ten languages, teleport to an Orientation Center for the foundation in SecondLife, read a blog, or informally learn more. "