Church World Service Executive Director Rev. John L. McCullough (left foreground) and Boulder CROP Hunger Walk Coordinator Suzanne Dysard (with sign) visit with students and teachers at one of the many schools in Vietnam where CWS helps to provide water and sanitation facilities. Photo: John Paterakis

CELEBRATING 50 YEARS IN VIETNAM

Story: Ann Walle/CWS

Church World Service recently celebrated its 50th anniversary in Vietnam. CROP Hunger Walk coordinator Suzanne Dysard, of Boulder, Colorado, and CWS Treasurer John Paterakis traveled with CWS Executive Director Rev. John L. McCullough to participate in commemorations that included Vietnam's vice-president and others.

SERVICE: What CWS-supported programs did you see in Vietnam?

DYSARD: CWS gave us a chance to see how they work with different groups in Vietnam. We traveled down dirt roads, through rice paddies, to visit remote schools and health clinics. I found it very interesting and important. In rural schools in general, CWS and the communities are focusing on sanitation and wells. It made quite an impact on me.

PATERAKIS: It was a multi-faceted trip. Starting from the city of Hanoi, which was upscale, and out to the rural provinces, we traveled about to meet with the Vietnamese people and to witness CWS groundwork being done onsite. Current Church World Service programs are basically oriented to helping the country's young people - working with sanitation issues and Vietnam's school system.

DYSARD: In Vietnam, business takes place through relationships. We saw this demonstrated by CWS in the way it works with its partners, as well as in the way they treated us while we were visiting. It was evident how everyone valued the CWS work, and that they are working together, as partners. It's not just "here's the money, here's what we're doing for you," but instead, "What do you need?"

PATERAKIS: CWS in Vietnam has built up very good and powerful relationships with its partners, with the government, and with the people we're working with there.

DYSARD: As we were out at the various business centers and schools, we saw CWS signs. In libraries, there were CWS signs in all the books that had been provided by CWS funds. There was a sense of genuineness to what we saw and experienced. We went to a teachers' college and ethnic minority boarding school. The blankets and beds there had been purchased by Church World Service (with Tools & Blankets funds).

SERVICE: From what you were able to see, what do you feel are some of the most pressing needs in Vietnam today?

PATERAKIS: Getting access to fresh water and sanitation facilities and septic systems is clearly a primary need in Vietnam. We visited a medical clinic and saw a pond behind the facility where they used to draw water. We saw examination rooms and saw medical instruments. Their medical instruments rust so much because of the poor quality of water that is unfiltered and full of iron. With help from CWS that site has just gotten a well and filtration equipment.

DYSARD: In the clinics, we saw some of their equipment and it was not up to the standards that you'd see in the U.S. But the staff was definitely very caring, well-educated, and concerned. The clinics didn't have the sterile, antiseptic feeling of U.S. health clinics. The staff did say they needed more bathrooms and were trying to find funds for more water and sanitation equipment.

Continuing to make fresh water accessible at schools so teachers can teach is vital. From what I saw, it's mainly girls and women who are doing the manual labor. These water and sanitation programs not only promote sanitation, they promote women's empowerment and education.

SERVICE: What are some of the images or impressions that you'll carry back to your local community or congregation?

DYSARD: As a CROP Hunger Walk organizer, one of the things interesting to me was a school project that receives some CROP Hunger Walk funding. The funds supported painting murals on bathrooms. I was curious that some of the money I was helping raise was being used for this. They explained that for many of the children, this is the first time they have had a bathroom. And it's a very scary building to them. So they're having to educate the students. Friendly murals help orient the kids. And part of the murals include signs above the basins about washing hands before meals.

PATERAKIS: I came away with the decided impression that this is a people that really wants to move toward having a better relationship with America and other countries.

DYSARD: Out in the rural areas, we saw people just working, working. In these areas, it is probably the way rural America was years ago. People seemed happy, regardless of where we were. Regardless of what I thought their lives were like, they seemed to be happy, busily engaged - not forlorn. I found the CWS local staff to be very empowered. There are mostly Vietnamese on staff. And there is a good relationship evident, a sense of vitality.

CROP Hunger Walk funds help support this and other life-changing efforts of Church World Service.
For a CROP Hunger Walk near you, call 1-888-CWS-CROP (888-297-2767).