Saigon Children's Charity

Coordinates: 10°46′51″N 106°41′20″E / 10.780803°N 106.688772°E / 10.780803; 106.688772

Saigon Children's Charity CIO (saigonchildren)
Founded 1992
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Type Non-governmental organization
Focus Children, Education
Area served
Vietnam
Method School Building, scholarships, Vocational training, special needs education
Key people
 Damien Roberts, Executive Director
Saigon Children's Charity scholars

Saigon Children's Charity CIO (saigonchildren) - a non-profit organization based in Ho Chi Minh City that provides direct support to disadvantaged children in order to ensure wider access to education in Vietnam.[1] The organisation was established in 1992 and is registered with the Charity Commissioners in UK. Saigonchildren is also registered as a non-profit organization in Vietnam and US.

Philosophy, Mission and Vision

Our philosophy:

We, saigonchildren believe that all children should have the right to fulfill their potential, and that a measured amount of carefully targeted help from us can make all the difference. We believe that by focusing on the educational needs of the most disadvantaged children we are able to achieve positive change for them. We measure our results in the numbers of children going to school, graduating from school, going on to university and those finding decent jobs.

Our mission:

“saigonchildren enables disadvantaged children and young adults in Vietnam to reach their full potential through receiving a quality education relevant to their needs”

Our vision:

Saigonchildren was founded in 1992 for a specific purpose: to help disadvantaged Vietnamese children to get an education and a fairer start in life. Saigonchildren works exclusively in Vietnam and is committed to overcoming barriers to education for children, including poverty, geography, knowledge and disability.

Our programmes aim to help disadvantaged children of Vietnam to escape from poverty through education and training. Our area of operation is in the south of Vietnam, around Ho Chi Minh City, extending to the Cambodian border and down into the Mekong Delta.

Programmes

School Building Programme:

School Building was our first programme, and has been one of our four main programmes since 1992, aiming to bring effective learning environments to children in disadvantaged areas. Our ultimate objective is not to build a school only, but to ensure all school and learning environments built are productively used to benefit children in need.

To date, the programme has achieved building 192 schools with 503 classrooms, across 13 provinces to benefit 15,000 children.

Getting Ready for work programme:

This programme supports disadvantaged young people aged 15 to 23 in Ho Chi Minh City with short term vocational training and other life skills to find employment and be a productive member of the community.

The programme includes projects such as: Vocational Training and Job Placement; Foreign Languages, IT and Social Activities; and Personal Counseling and Life Skills.

Child Development Scholarship Programme:

Our scholarship packages offer assistance to pay tuition fees or rice, school supplies (textbooks and notebooks) and a new school uniform during the school year. With the Child Development Scholarship Programme, we ensure that all children excluded from school or whose education is jeopardized by poverty can attend school untroubled by worries about the cost of education to their families.

36,800 annual scholarships have been provided to disadvantaged children in Southern Vietnam since 1992.

Special Needs Education Programme:

The Special Needs Education Programme came to existence in order to contribute essential resources to local organisations so that they can realise innovative ideas, share knowledge and develop best practices in the field of education for children with disabilities which enable them to get their optimal development.

Since 2009 we have supported 57 projects benefiting more than 10,000 children, 1,800 teachers and parents in 10 provinces.

http://www.saigonchildren.com/what-we-do/our-programme-principles/

Key Fundraising Events

Finance

Our accounts are audited each year by KPMG and published with the Annual Report on the UK Charity Commission website.

http://beta.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details/?regid=1157774&subid=0

Board of Trustees

The trustees are responsible for the governance as well as the general control and management of the administration of the charity. Our trustees have ultimate responsibility for directing the affairs of saigonchildren, and ensuring that it is compliant with the relevant regulations of both the UK and Vietnam, solvent, well-run, and delivering the charitable outcomes for the benefit of the public for which it has been set up. Finally they must also individually and as a board act with integrity, and avoid any personal conficts of interest or misuse of charity funds or assets.

Our Board of Trustees are:

  • Alain Cany, Chair of Board of Trustees, Group Country Chairman of Jardine Matheson Vietnam, HCMC
  • Diana Wells, retired teacher based in the UK
  • Paul Cleves (saigonchildren Founder), Entrepreneur, HCMC
  • Mark Fraser, Managing Partner of Frasers Law Company, HCMC
  • Nguyen Thi Thanh Truc, Chief Financial Officer, HSBC, HCMC
  • Jonathan Waugh, Businessman, HCMC
  • Paul McGee, Vice President of B2C Strategy - PCH International, Hong Kong
  • Hoang Tri Mai, Managing Director, Rolls-Royce Vietnam, Hanoi
  • David Appleton, Partner, xtab xtudios, HCMC
  • Jakki Lydall, Former Executive Director of British Business Group in Vietnam, now in the UK

Directors

Paul Cleves founded Saigon Children’s Charity in 1992. He came to live in Vietnam to run the charity full time in 1995. In 2004 Paul’s contribution to disadvantaged children was recognised and he was awarded the MBE. In 2007 he decided it was a suitable time to pass on the role to Paul Finnis.

Since 2018, the Executive Director of saigonchildren has been Damien Roberts. Damien has managed international operations both in the UK and across South East Asia, and worked in both public and private sectors.

http://www.saigonchildren.com/about-us/our-team/executive-director/

References

  1. http://www.saigonchildren.com/
  2. https://www.facebook.com/Saigonchildren/
  3. https://twitter.com/saigonchildren?lang=en
  4. http://www.scc-usa.org/

This article is related to the List of non-governmental organizations in Vietnam.

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