East Meets West and Room to Read have together built nine schools in Central Vietnam. The schools range in size from just a few classrooms to six classrooms, serving populations of between 75 and 200 students.

East Meets West and Room to Read collaborate on schools that are designed to reduce one of the key constraints on education in rural Vietnam – classroom crowding. Many schools are so crowded that they must handle their students in shifts, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. This makes for a reduced school day for students, and a very long one for teachers. In most cases, EMW and Room to Read identify a community where the existing school has about half the rooms necessary, and then replaces the old school with a new one.

 

The following article originally appeared in EMW's Reach Vietnam magazine's Spring 2006 edition written by John Anner.

Space to Play, Room to Read

One of EMW’s most fruitful partnerships in 2005 was with Room to Read, a nonprofit organization that creates thousands of libraries, builds hundreds of schools and funds scholarships for girls to allow them to attend school. Room to Read has programs in Nepal, Cambodia, India, Sri Lanka, Laos, and has been operating in Vietnam since 2001.

In 2005, EMW and Room to Read entered a collaboration to work on thirteen schools together— six kindergartens and seven primary schools, for a total of forty-three classrooms serving an annual student population of around 1,750 children. The two partners are also working together on ADAPT – the An Giang/Dong Thap Alliance to Prevent Trafficking.

The kindergartens and primary schools are located in central Vietnam – two in Hue, four in Quang Tri, two in Binh Dinh, one in Phu Yen and three in Quang Nam. One of the projects, the Tay Giang Primary School, is typical of the kind of work EMW and Room to Read are doing together. This school was built before 1975 as one of the three branches of Tran Phu primary school. After almost 30 years of use, the school was so dilapidated the teachers feared it might collapse in a storm. The classrooms were small, poorly lit and badly ventilated. The clay tile covered roof was severely damaged with many holes, so that when it rained water dripped on the children. Even the foundation was damaged and unstable, and there was no running water in the primitive outhouse. Finally, the school simply wasn’t big enough to accommodate the 204 students attending it.

The community is poor, with monthly family incomes around $12. Most of the local people are farmers scratching out a living from rain-irrigated rice and vegetable farms. The soil is poor, however, and yields are low. An education is the only way for a better life for the children of Tay Giang.

In November 2005, construction was finished on the new school. There are five new classrooms housed in a single story structure with a total area of 3,132 square feet. The foundation is built with stone and high-grade cement mortar and the floors are finished in enameled brick and thus are easy to keep clean. The roof framing is made of steel and the roof itself is covered with good quality cement tile. All walls are built with strong brick and painted with high quality paint to reduce moisture infiltration and make maintenance easier. The exterior is painted with high quality latex paint to prevent water penetration through the masonry walls.

In each classroom there is one door and two glass windows which are framed with wood. Each new classroom includes two fans, five sets of international-spec fluorescent lights, 15 sets of tables and two-seat benches for pupils, one set of table and chair for teacher and an anti-glare chalkboard. The new school has a bathroom with two separate stalls for girls and boys. There is a water basin outside the bathroom. The project also has one water tank with a capacity of 2,000 liters to provide clean water for the bathroom.

The school yard has been landscaped with a fence, gate and internal concrete roads. This work was done by the local community. The total value of the community’s contribution was $7,753, about 22% of the total cost of the project.
The children of Tay Giang now have a school they can be proud of, one that is conducive to learning. But more importantly, there is now sufficient space to accommodate all the children without having to split the school day in half and run two shifts.

“This partnership has been really important for Room to Read, “ says Erin Keown Ganju, the Chief Operating Officer of Room to Read. “Working with East Meets West has allowed us to work in areas, and thus impact communities and children, which we would otherwise not have been able to reach. It has been a very rewarding partnership.”

 

For More Info

To get involved with EMW School program, contact the EMW Development Team at info@eastmeetswest.org.