Keeping my promise | Don Thomson

Keeping My Promise

DON THOMSON

Whilst holidaying in Vietnam in 2010, I spent a few days as a volunteer at the DaNang Social Support Centre which caters for people that are unable to look after themselves because they have poor health, are too old, too young or they are simply too poor. The Social Support Centre is run by the Department of Social Services, it is under-resourced and relies heavily on volunteers to provide adequate care to the residents. A local privately run organization called Volunteer Vietnam, run by Dang Van Quoc Viet has taken on the responsibility of sourcing volunteers from all over the world to help provide basic care for the residents.

At the conclusion of my volunteer stay I raised the idea of training some of the residents at the Social Support Centre in horticulture and finding them employment in one of the many new resorts being built along the South China Sea.

Viet was excited about the idea and we agreed that this would be a worthy project but sometime in the future when my children had completed school and I had more time.

Ten years on and the horticulture training project has moved along with several notable milestones.

My return to Vietnam in 2015 marked the start of the real work on the horticulture project: assessing the status quo of existing gardening practices; assessing the capacity of the residents at the DaNang Social Support Centre; and meeting with resort HR managers to gauge their interest with the project. Armed with this knowledge I began work on a horticulture course that caters for the residents at the DaNang Social Support Centre and delivers suitable outcomes for the resorts.

I am formally partnered by Swinburne in 2017 with the signing of a MOU pledging support for the proposed horticulture training program at the DaNang Social Support Centre.

In 2018 a bilingual horticulture course tailored for Vietnamese students was produced using the Australian Certificate II as a model. This course is currently being taught to 8 students at the DaNang Social Support Centre by Stewart Detez from the Swinburne Wantirna campus via Skype every fortnight. It is expected that these students will complete the horticulture course by the end of 2021.

In April 2019 I presented the DaNang pilot horticulture course to the Hau Giang community in the Mekong with a view to rolling out similar training in these parts. The heads of Hau Giang college were present at this meeting and invited a representative from Swinburne and I to meet in June 2019 to consider whether such a horticulture course could be taught at the college in partnership with Swinburne.

After a marathon meeting at Hau Giang College in June 2019 with the heads of Hau Giang College, Stewart Detez from Swinburne, Viet from Volunteer Vietnam and myself, it was agreed in principle to move forward with a Certificate II Horticulture course at Hau Giang College. The details are still being negotiated but I am optimistic of a start in 2022 (COVID permitting).

More recently a charity foundation called Vocational Training South East Asia (VTSEA) has been created. It has five sitting board members representing Swinburne, Hau Giang College, Volunteer Vietnam and myself. The board will direct the project in terms of what will be taught and will provide appropriate governance over funds received and spent.

There is a lifetime of work to do around this project, starting with meetings scheduled with the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry in Ha Noi (when travel allows) to ensure that the proposed horticulture training program sits within the local legal framework.

It is clear that the pilot horticulture program being delivered to the students in DaNang has provided a powerful template for delivering trade-based training in this region that was previously absent, and very much needed, in South East Asia. "It is clear that the pilot horticulture program being delivered to the students in DaNang has provided a powerful template for delivering trade-based training in this region that was previously absent, and very much needed, in South East Asia."