CHIA works with children whose life opportunities may be limited due to poor health, disability and lack of access to education. Tailored assistance plans, or Care Packages, are developed for children on a needs basis to provide the best possible outcome. Support can range from facilitating medical and surgical intervention, to providing a bicycle to enable a child to stay in school. This holistic approach recognises access to quality health, disability and education services are vital for long term family and community development and should be the right of every child, regardless of family income.

Our programs currently focus on three key areas: health, disability and education services.

Health

Health services in Vietnam are improving but are still well below the standards of most Western countries. While the quality of care in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi has improved in recent times, the standard of services in rural and remote communities remains relatively poor. Children living in these areas often suffer unnecessarily from conditions that can be improved if they had access to health services. CHIA’s focus is on:

• Initial child assessment and diagnosis
• Provision of health clinics in our Hoi An facility and in surrounding rural areas
• Facilitating and financing surgery and treatment for children presenting with:

  - Cardiac (heart) abnormalities

  - Hydrocephalus (water on the brain)

  - Severe gastroenterological conditions

  - Cleft lip and palate

  - Orthopaedic conditions

• Post operative management and home based support
• Management of children with chronic health conditions such as epilepsy
• Nutritional supplements for malnourished children

Disability

Vietnam is home to a disproportionately large number of disabled children. Many families with disabled children have never sought treatment for their disabilities, largely due to the lack of disability services available. Similarly, many children have never had access to rehabilitative aids such as wheelchairs and walking frames. The support CHIA provides to children with disabilities includes:

• Facilitating and financing surgery and after care remediation to treat children with disabilities such as congenital bone deformities to maximise long term physical functionality
• Regular in-house physiotherapy for children with conditions including Cerebral Palsy and Muscular Dystrophy to maximise physical and functional development
• Special education services with a focus on play therapy and practical learning to maximise social and intellectual development
• Supply of functional aids such as wheelchairs and walking frames

Education

In many respects, education is the key to unlocking the cycle of poverty. CHIA assists children to stay in school by providing education sponsorships to ensure that children from the poorest families have the opportunity to receive a full primary and secondary education. Sponsorships include tuition fees, uniforms, text books, stationery and where required, a bicycle.

Hoi An Children’s Home

CHIA helps to manage a residential home for 30 teenagers who otherwise would have to stop going to school, since the the home of their families are too far from the nearest school, and their families are very poor. Children are also sponsored through tertiary education. Social worker and care staff provide a family-like environment, and children are strongly ecouraged to maintain strong links with their families.

Housing

Due to severe floods and typhoons in 2007 and 2009, the lives of thousands families in Hoi An, as well as some surrounding districts, came to a standstill. CHIA’s Housing project helps children from the poorest families have a safe and secure housing, repalcing their palm-leaf and bamboo huts with brick and concrete homes.

Thanh, pictured with her mother, was able to have life saving cardiac surgery due to the support her family received from our HeartKids program. Read Thanh’s story.	Without CHIA’s therapy program, Sy would have no access to therapies for Cerebral Palsy. Read Sy’s story.	Thuy and her mother are grateful for CHIA’s support which will ensure Thuy can complete her schooling and have a chance of a brighter future.