The Passion
Robyn Morley is the Australian founder of grass-roots charity Children’s Hope In Action (CHIA). Robyn believes passionately that in this time of plenty, it is the birthright of every child to be raised within a nurturing familial environment, and to have access to education and medical care. Robyn wishes to work as a conduit, to allow those who have more than enough to share their good fortune with those who are struggling to survive, to encourage the development of tomorrow’s leaders.
We have some urgent cases that need help now...
In a country where a monthly income of $1,000 classifies you as very rich, where a day labourer may get $1 for her efforts, where a new car is an impossible dream, and where the population is still struggling to overcome the devastation of what they call “The American War”, the Government struggles vainly to provide health care – even for the most disadvantaged.
In the recesses of every city, town and village, children like yours and mine suffer unnecessarily from what we regard as treatable illness.
Welcome to modern Vietnam, one of Asia’s most sought-after tourist destinations.
Here the Government can’t provide free education and health cover because it only taxes those earning over AUD$415/USD$313 per month. To illustrate how few people fall into the tax bracket, a Vietnamese doctor is paid AUD$170/USD$125 per month by the Government and has to work privately in the evenings and on the weekends to make a living.
When you look behind the tourist façade of Hoi An, the ancient 16th century Chinese seaport and Vietnam’s tourist Mecca, you’ll find children like Kieu Thi Manh. Manh is three years old and has hydrocephalus (water on the brain).
Manh’s father is an unskilled worker and her mother, Tu, can’t work as there’s nobody else to care for Manh. The family lives on the main road between Da Nang (home of the famous China Beach) and Hoi An where they watch foreigners, ignorant of their plight, travel the tourist route.
Tu doesn’t understand hydrocephalus – she is illiterate and can’t read a thermometer never mind record Manh’s symptoms.
With a family income of AUD$1/USD$0.75 per day, Tu can’t afford the treatment Manh needs. Neither can she call on her Government. She relies instead on Robyn Morley, founder of Australian charity Children’s Hope In Action (CHIA).
Robyn and CHIA’s volunteers and Vietnamese staff, concentrate their efforts on the 750 children in Hoi An who have been identified as having disabilities such as cerebral palsy, missing limbs and congenital deformities, other debilitating chronic and critical health conditions such as pneumonia, cardiac deformities, ichthyosis and hydrocephalus, or are not going to school for various reasons.
Few of these sick and disabled children have access to appropriate health care. Local authorities do their best but, with their limited funding… Much more is needed.
This is where you can help.
Thanks to the vision and determination of Robyn Morley, CHIA has been established to provide time-critical health care for children like Manh and to ensure access to education, even for the poorest.
Whether it be by taking children to Saigon or Hanoi, or bringing medical professionals to Hoi An; Robyn and CHIA are determined to ensure these children have a future.
Your donation will help. AUD$250/USD$188 would enable CHIA to take a sick child and a parent to Saigon for assessment or treatment. AUD$180/USD$135 buys sufficient high nutrition milk formula to strengthen and support an infant through the surgical process or to overcome malnutrition.
Robyn’s goal though, is to help every disadvantaged child in Quang Nam Province. To do that, CHIA is planning to build a AUD$5/USD$3.8 million clinic and to do that, CHIA needs even more help.
Your children, our children, have access to health care beyond Manh and Tu’s imagination. Tu deserved it; Manh needed it, but received too little too late. Manh’s condition is now terminal, due to her health being too poor to respond to treatment. Imagine how Tu feels. Hundreds of children like Manh, are urgently waiting for our help, so they can be normal, healthy, fun-loving kids and grow to their full potential as adults.
Written for CHIA by James Yuille
 |
 |
 |
Download PDF Brochure 