Photo of the week

Art class at the AO Group Home in Danang that Helping Hands will be donating all proceeds to:


(Photo by HH)

High School Students Raise Money for AO Victims

In Portland, Oregon, students at Gresham High School hope to raise $1,000 to send to an orphanage in Vietnam that cares for children affected by Agent Orange:

This year, much of their attention has been focused on Vietnam, and the lasting effects of Agent Orange.

Agent Orange is the nickname for a powerful herbicide and defoliant the U.S. military used between 1961 and 1971 during the Vietnam War.

Chemicals found in the compound cause a wide range of health problems and birth defects.

In addition to hosting an information night with a presentation by a Vietnam veteran, the students did presentations in the other classes at the school, showing a video clip about Agent Orange to the students to help raise awareness of the issue.

Club members hope to raise $1,000 to send to an orphanage in Vietnam to help children who are still experiencing the effects of Agent Orange, Kim said.

Article on AO in Science magazine

Agent Orange's Bitter Harvest.

An excerpt: "New findings paint a more sinister picture of the Vietnam War herbicide; scientists are trying to revive an epic study of its effects on U.S. veterans and clarify its legacy in Vietnam."

Read more.

(Hat tip Professor C)

Article on the AO lawsuit

Viet Q has the details.

Video

Here is a good news clip produced by ABC (Australia) that someone has uploaded to YouTube. It highlights the ongoing effect of Agent Orange in Vietnam as well as the lawsuit brought against chemical companies responsible for manufacturing Agent Orange that is currently moving through the U.S. court system.

NPR

Take a listen to this NPR piece, The Legacy of Agent Orange, from November 2006.

Read some letters

The Danang Quang Nam Fund has been collecting and translating letters from people affected by Agent Orange in Vietnam. Thus far, they have received over 4,000, mostly from Thai Binh province.

Go have a read. They are heart-wrenching.

Here's an excerpt from one:

However, after coming back from the war we had one more child in 1980. Unfortunately, she was abnormal. She's only 13 kilos weight, keeps crying days and nights. I went to have her cured, but it was useless because the doctors all said that she was born mentally retarded. She was blind, paralyzed. She realized nothing about the world around her. I was so sad to know that dioxin from her father's body had passed to hers causing her diseases.

Now she is 25 years old, but she is only a child. She knows nothing except crying. I have to help her with everything in her daily activities. My family, therefore, meets with too many difficulties.

Noodlepie

Thanks Pieman.

Donations

If you choose to donate, please visit the Danang Quang Nam Fund website, or visit Just Give. Specify that you want your money to go to the Agent Orange group home ('Peace Village') in Danang by mentioning "Helping Hands."

Remember $1 USD = ~16,000 VND. Every dollar counts. Instead of buying starbucks and a bagel this morning, give $5USD. If you do, every kid at the home will get a pack of crayons.

Give $10 USD and a child eats for a months.

Give $30 USD and a child can be housed at the Peace Village for 3 months.

Give $40 USD and a child can be taken care of during the day for 6 months.

To help put U.S. prices in perspective when I lived in Vietnam, I used to make the calculation, "How many bowls of Pho would that buy?" Once I saw concert tickets on Ebay selling for $8,000 USD. I remember thinking, "$8,000 USD would be 24,000 bowls of Pho." Think about your donation this way. Spend $10 USD in Manhattan and you might get a decent cocktail; donate $10 USD to the Peace Village and a child will eat for a month.

U.S. gives $400,000 USD

A small step forward:

The money will be used to help pay for a $1 million study on how to remove dioxin from the soil at the former U.S. base in Danang, one of three Agent Orange hotspots recognized by the U.S. government. Dioxin is a highly toxic ingredient of Agent Orange, a herbicide U.S. forces used to strip away foliage from jungles during the Vietnam War.

...

The grant marks an important symbolic step toward resolving an issue that has long divided the two former foes, whose relationship has grown steadily closer in recent years.
More

Da Cam, the film

Vu Tran, the director of Da Cam kindly donated several DVDs for our fundraiser. Da Cam, literally 'Orange Skin', is a touching film about Vietnamese living in and around Danang suffering from the effects Agent Orange. Highlighted in the film is the work of Professor Herrmann and the Danang Quang Nam Fund. Professor Herrmann has been very helpful in our efforts as well.

Helping Hands VN in the News

Awhile back, before we had a blog, Helping Hands was featured in the Vietnamese newspaper, Tuoi Tre. Unless you speak Vietnamese, you won't understand a word but you will see the photo that gave the fundraiser its name. Trying to decide on a name for our event, we settled on Helping Hands Vietnam because of a painting by one of the children at the group home. Featuring two clasped hands, one representing Vietnam and one representing the U.S., we thought it perfectly captured the nature of our event: Vietnamese and U.S. citizens working together.

Tet

For those of you in New York, check out the Tet celebration at 113 Baxter St on Sunday at 4pm.

If you aren't in NYC, Andrea Nguyen at Viet World Kitchen has a great post about Tet, including how to find an event near you, assuming you live in the U.S.

NYC Event

John Jay College, at 59th and 10th, is currently running a photo exhibit by Japanese photographer Goro Nakamura highlighting both American and Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange. More from Vietnam News.

Film: The Last Ghost of War

Footage on Vietnamese AO victims’ lawsuit to be shown:

NEW YORK — A documentary entitled The Last Ghost of War which depicts Vietnamese Agent Orange (AO) victims’ lawsuit against American chemical producers, is scheduled to be screened in the US, in late February.

Pham Quoc Thai, an overseas Vietnamese, who worked on the Janet Gardner directed 57-minute piece, said that the documentary focuses on the three groups of people exposed to Agent Orange, Vietnamese victims, American war veterans and ex-workers at US chemical factories.
War veterans, lawyers and historians in both Viet Nam and the US would also appear in the documentary to help provide a thorough insight into the use of the defoliant used by the US military during the Viet Nam war, Thai said.