VIETNAM Orphans Winchester will be promoting their charity at St Cross Fete on Saturday, June 25, in hope of gaining support for their cause.
The charity, Vietnam Orphans Winchester has donated nearly £4000’s worth of goods and supplies to six underprivileged orphanages in Vietnam’s central highlands.
Currently, Vietnam Orphans Winchester is working towards purchasing school and other Vietnamese books to stock their libraries. At present, the charity has sent approximately 1000 books but are looking to supply more.
Alan Acton and his wife Nhan founded the charity in 2019, after realising the devastating affects of the poverty cycle in Vietnam.
The charity evolved from the couple’s visit to Saigon where they were struck by the number of neglected orphans.
READ MORE: Thank you lunch for Winchester charity’s volunteers
Speaking about his time in Vietnam, Alan from Kings Worthy said: “There were lots of babies all over the floor with no one to look after them. So, we looked after them for the day and when we went back, they said there’s many other orphanages. We looked around and saw that they were in need, so we decided to help out.
"When I came back to my local church, I told one or two people and they gave me money, which I didn’t know what to do with. Having talked to a few friends, they decided to open up a bank account and it sort of evolved from there and then we got a board of directors and it just kept getting bigger.
"It became official in 2019 but we’d been working on it for about a year and half before that."
Since then, Vietnam Orphans Winchester have developed upon Alan and Nhan’s pioneering work, making funding available for equipment to improve the lives of children in need who are cared for by the catholic sisters.
So far, the charity has helped by supplying washing machines- reducing the need for washing by hand, commercial dough makers and a mechanical BBQ- making cooking more efficient and allowing bread and chicken to be sold locally to provide income for the orphanages.
Chair of the charity, Charles Bazlinton said: “We started the charity because we wanted to help the people who are helping the destitute children. The emergency call for a BBQ was in a Covid lockdown when food was scarce. We want to be able to help the orphanage help themselves with labour saving devices and the ability to sell food and bring in income from their own efforts.
“Even simple donations help, like in January 2020 just before Alan and Nhan’s visit there was news of a baby abandoned in the forest and because the staff had battery torches it was found at night before the wild animals found it.”
Vietnam Orphans Winchester was officially registered with the Charity Commission in October 2021. The charity continues to grow with 40 to 50 members in addition to its board of directors.
Co-founder Alan Acton expects most of their members will be at the fete on Saturday, where the group will be spreading the word about their work and looking for new supporters.
He said: "There will be lots of pictures at the stall. Promoting the charity to raise awareness and to get people invested, join the mailing list and maybe make a donation.
“Because I’m the only one who has been to Vietnam I’ll be able to answer the questions about Vietnamese culture and what’s happening but anything to do with the finance I give to someone else to do!
“What isn’t always reported is it’s within Vietnam’s culture that if a mother dies during childbirth the baby gets buried alive with its mother. And you often find that the girls don’t have any education and so they end up getting pregnant, often no fault of their own, and then they end up dumping the baby in the woods.
“We want to help out to break the cycle so if we can provide education and college placement maybe then we can free the girls from the cycle.”
The charity will be at St Cross Fete from 1.30pm to 5pm. To find out more about Vietnam Orphans Winchester and the work they do go to https://vowinchester.com/.
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