The Children are Cold in Lang Son

I'm worried about the students in Lang Son. We received a beautiful video of the primary school students doing their morning exercises. I watched happy until I noticed how many of them were barefoot. Winter begins in November. Please consider donating to help us purchase more coats, sweaters, scarves and most importantly socks, shoes and boots. A donation of 30usd will provide one child with all of the above. Please give what you can, every bit counts.
http://www.familiesinvietnam.org/love_education_fund.shtml
scroll down to Food for Thought to make a donation now.
Many thanks for your attention and kindness.

The winters are colder in Lang Son. The past 2 years it snowed. It is such a wet cold, in fact it is so wet/cold it snows in Lang Son at 2degrees F warmer there than in the USA.
The follow article reports on the effects of the unusually cold winter in Lang Son.

Updated : 5:15 PM, 02/02/2011

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More than 50,000 heads of cattle died of severe cold weather

(VOV) - As of 4pm on February 2, a total of 50,000 heads of cattle have died because of the recent long cold spell in some northern provinces, according to the Veterinary Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

Son La province suffered the greatest loss of over 9,300 heads of cattle, followed by Lang Son (7,500) and Cao Bang (6,800).

Apart from the buffalos and cows died of the severe cold weather, horses, pigs, goats and giraffes were also lost.

The Veterinary Department appointed delegations to cities and provinces coordinate local animal health departments to fight against the dangers of hunger and cold for cattle during the Lunar New Year (Tet) festival.

http://english.vov.vn/Home/More-than-50000-heads-of-cattle-died-of-severe-cold-weather/20112/123622.vov

1,2,3 there are the old beds at the school for nap time- they were not big enough. then with the help of donors we built new beds and now 3. the children napping.

Nutritional Gifts Given

    After speaking with some friends I saw how our important it is to convey the success we did have with our first round of the Food for Thought Chicken Project. 600 chickens were delivered to families that did not have any. Let me say that again. 600 chickens were delivered to families that did not have any chickens. Maybe I should shout it out- it's such good news- and how often do we get good news???
    Chickens were sent back to the lunch program to share with all the poor children we now feed. So many chickens were sent in and at the same time chicken prices went up we all agreed the families could sell chickens at the higher price and send money to the lunch program. Pork and yogurt were purchased with the extra money. This meant that the 55 children we provide lunch for had wonderful nutritious lunches.
     Food for Thought Chicken Project began in the fall of 2009. We started giving chickens to a few families in the spring of 2010. We started small to monitor the program and see if it would work. It did and we added families. Most of these families gave food back to the lunch program. Through our Food for Thought Lunch Project and our Chicken Project from 2009 we have served over 18,000 lunches to the children of Lang Son!
    We need support for our Chicken Project and for our Food for Thought Lunch Project- there is also a garden project. We are providing cooked lunches and at the same time growing a garden, growing the chicken project one family at a time and looking forward to the sustainability of the these projects! The garden and the chickens can give forward - and the nourished educated students in Lang Son can also give forward for a finer future for all of us.

FYI
The following words are about chickens and the Vietnam people- :I share them so you can appreciate the many many thank yous that are given for your generosity and caring from the students and their families and all of us at the Lelean and Lacey  Love Education Fund.
                                                            lớn tuyệt vời cảm ơn bạn!!!!
                                                                 (a great big thank you!!!)

      Marketing poultry products  

Egg and meat products are used to fill household needs. Some of the products are sold to
markets or neighbours. Poultry is sold live. Poultry products serve as credit for households.
When farmers need cash for medical services, medicine, school fees, and children books,
etc., they sell eggs or chickens. Poultry is slaughtered when guests visit. Frozen chicken
meat is not popular for rural people. It is considered unfresh or less tasty. Other hand,
without the necessary infrastructure and equipment, frozen chicken meat cannot reach the
rural areas

The relationship between poultry and Vietnamese society  

Poultry industry has one of the longest histories of the different animal husbandry systems.
It contributes approximately 30 percent of farmers’ total income. It is a very important
resource for farmers’ living conditions and culture.

The cultural associations of poultry products 

One beautiful Vietnamese tradition is bringing eggs to neighbours, to the sick, or to pregnant
women as a gift.
 If the poultry herd of a farmer dies from disease, their relatives bring him or her some
poultries to replace those lost. Sometimes, children receive poultry as birthday gifts.

According to legend  

Four thousand years ago, My Nuong, the daughter of Hung King, was proposed to by both
Mountain King and River King. Hung King ordered a betrothal gift that included nine elephant
tusks, nine cock spurs and nine horses’ manes.

  Folk paintings and poetry 

Paintings of poultry have been popular for hundreds of years in Viet Nam. The most popular one is of a Ho chicken herd, which includes a hen and an intelligent baby chick setting on her back while looking for food in the garden. In the Tet holiday (the Lunar New Year), people buy this painting to signify a fortunate,
successful and healthy New Year.
 Chicken herds symbolize peacefulness in rural areas, as in a famous poem by Hoang Cam.
From:
FAO. 2008. Poultry production systems in Viet Nam. Prepared by Nguyen Van Duc and T. Long.
GCP/RAS/228/GER Working Paper No. 4. Rome 

      Providing chickens for poor families in Lang Son province touches their lives in practical and emotional ways. This is what you did when you provided hundreds and hundreds of chickens to the families of Lang Son. Your gift touched them in practical and emotional ways. Please help us help them help each other through our give forward shared resources Food for Thought Project. To donate, click the link below:
   http://familiesinvietnam.org/love_education_fund.shtml

   

this is inside one of our families homes that received chickens. if you look closely there is a hose so water can come into the home. this family lives close to the school

the school teachers and administration, Son and all of you have made the food for thought program successful. we delivered 600 chickens. I'l like to deliver another 600 and find a way to add pigs and ducks too. I wrote below about the type of chicken we delivered. it seems it's a chicken used for growing and eating, not the same as the chickens we see running around the country side.

however, people do have chickens and they are all eating better, including our students. I wish we could all go there- once you see the children, the area, meet the school staff it's easy to realize how much $5 or $10 dollars can do and how responsible this school is to see it gets done.

Let's call this "A SHOUT out to my PEEPS"

it's that chicken project. we began this paperwork on this project in 4/ 2009. blahblahbla...paperwork!

Our first chicken delivery was in January 2010.

since then TOGETHER we've delivered 600 chickens plus starter feed to 20 families in this village!

pretty good!

high 5's !!

a SHOUT out to our peeps!!

so there's a catch- yes there's always a catch. and always more to learn. damn it. :-)

the chickens in the project-all 600 of the chickens in the project are "industral chickens"

does this mean they wear a suit when they go to work laying eggs?

no - it means they grow quickly- and before they get to laying eggs or something like that- they are food - food for thought.

this explains why there were mostly chickens sent to the school and very little eggs- I wondered about this- but chickens were good enough so I didn't ask. duh.

This time at our big meeting we carefully introduced the notion of chickens, eggs, more chickens, more eggs, and so on............

I keep hearing the song 'the beat goes on...and the beat goes on.....' so we're going to try again with "home town farmer type chickens" the ones I see running around LS and Hanoi even!

will you try with us again?

I hope you say yes.

. http://familiesinvietnam.org/love_education_fund.shtml

one of our bigger sponsored families that's Son and Lelan passing out clothes and other gifts. they were so appreciative-Lelan said "at our home getting clothes is normal, here it was like we were giving them something beyond normal, something like a gold bar, they were very happy, little kids were jumping up and down"

some of our sponsored students meeting with the local department of education with us too

this family received rice, oil, clothes, and other items packed with love from their sponsor

Lelan, Les and Son deliver rice, oil, spices, clothes to one of our sponsored students who is in the lunch program.

lunch is better than ever thanks to you

lelan and lacey helping to hand out treats to the children at Tan Liem elementary school.

we wanted everyone to receive something sweet.

this is lacey playing at the playground at the somerset hanoi towers, this was just last week

it was cold!!!

we go back to LS to the school on wednesday. we'll give the school the chicken plaque of appreciation. that's not really the name of the plaque but some of the translations here are really comical.

i plan on taking photos and video. lelan has a class project and they have some gifts for one of the 4th grade classes. I'm going to shop tomorrow for more winter clothes. 2 days ago in the car in LS we past a student without shoes or socks. not a student at our school, it was in the middle of nowhere. he was walking with other students some had the blue and white school jackets. we continued on with our trip no extra shoes or socks to give him.

I have an idea. if anyone reading this has the spirit or energy to do this please do. i will help. the kids at our school could all wear uggs. they are comfortable year round. they get wet and they dry out. they are so warm in the winter. would someone contact uggs and ask them to supply our students with shoes?

After and then Before ...my LD AP post (small sigh).

See the old thin, rickety beds? in the 2nd pix? the old nap room at TL school. the new beds are clean, solid, traditional. the school admin hoped we would help upgrade the nap beds and add more nap space for the kids.

together we've made more changes. I plan to post over the next few days as we head out to Lang Son. thanks for all your support.