For the past four years, Hoang-Anh Nguyen has been one of 1,100 elementary school parent volunteers for Project Cornerstone’s ABC Program. She helps with the program every month by reading asset-building children’s books in classrooms, holding reflective discussions, and doing activities to empower students to deal with bully behavior they may face at school, in their neighborhood, or even in their home.
Last summer, during a visit to her homeland of Vietnam, Anh told her niece about the ABC Program and how much she enjoys volunteering because she sees the impact and influence it has on the children. Anh’s niece shared with her that bullying also goes on in the rural village school where she teaches, and asked how she could bring the ABC Program to the 330 students at her school.
When Anh returned home to San Jose at the end of the summer, she met with staff from Project Cornerstone and asked if they could help her “export” the ABC program to her niece’s school. She shared stories of how she was bullied in various settings as she was growing up and said that she felt the messages being brought to children in Silicon Valley schools could be just as valuable in rural Vietnam.
Anh went on to share more of her personal story. She began her journey to freedom in 1980 when she was just 13 years old. Five years earlier the government had forced her father and uncle to enter a “re-educator” camp—and she never saw them again. When they took her family’s home away from them, her grandfather had a heart attack and passed away. It was clear they had no reason to stay in Vietnam, so Anh’s mother put Anh and her younger brother on one of the many boats headed out of the country.
They tried to escape Vietnam more than 10 times, but were caught off the coast and returned. After three of those returns, Anh and her younger brother were put in jail. The older women in the jail bullied Anh and left her feeling very unsafe.
In 1984, her mother gathered all the small pieces of gold she could find and sold them for a place for two on another boat. Since Anh’s mother couldn’t afford a space on the boat, she had to stay behind and once again hope that Anh and her brother weren’t captured by government patrols or pirates off the coast, and that the boat wouldn’t capsize. This particular trip was successful. By the time they made land they had been lost at sea for a week without food, having only water for nourishment.
They landed on Kuku, a small Indonesian island, and lived there for seven months in what Anh describes as “very poor conditions.” Catholic Charities was one of the many aid organizations working with the “boat people” of Vietnam to find sponsoring homes and foster homes for children and they found a family in New York that would take both Anh and her brother as foster children.
Bullying and abuse was a part of the daily life in their foster family. Luckily for Anh and her brother, she was able to share this information with her English teacher, who reported the abuse. Authorities then removed Anh and her brother from the home. The authorities were able to find a loving, caring home for them, and Anh and her brother were able to successfully finish high school and college.
Anh is now married and is the mother of two beautiful girls. She and her family live in San Jose, California, which is home to one of the largest Vietnamese populations outside of Vietnam.
In August 2008, Anh gave Project Cornerstone the opportunity to take their ABC Program outside of Silicon Valley, to rural Vietnam, where children were experiencing the same interpersonal problems as children in California. Together Ahn and Project Cornerstone chose the books and lesson plans from the existing list that seemed most appropriate for the types of bullying students were struggling with the most.
Before they could be used, however, the books and lessons needed to be translated. Fortunately, Anh has developed an effective system for the task. Every morning for 15–20 minutes, she and a cousin living in Vietnam spend time together via Skype. Ahn reads the children’s books and lesson plans aloud in Vietnamese to her cousin, who types the translations. Anh sends several copies of each book to her cousin, who then gets the books and lessons, with translations, to Anh’s niece teaching in the countryside.
Because of Anh’s efforts, over 300 students experience Project Cornerstone ABC books and lessons, which teach them new skills to help them cope with hurtful peer-to-peer behavior, as well as how to be a good friend. As our global community continues to become more reachable with the assistance of technology, perhaps the goal of embracing all kids as our kids can become a reality.
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