A Huế  based NGO worker bringing change to the shelter he grew up in

For episode 17 we travelled to central Vietnam to talk Nhật who lost his parents when he was young boy and had to move from a small village to Huế.

He now works at the shelter he grew up in and on a stroll around the city's citadel we talked to him about countryside living, helping to improve the lives of children who suffered similar tragedies to his and finding success despite some academic set-backs.

Một nhân viên làm trong tổ chức phi chính phủ tại Huế, người đang mang lại đổi thay cho ngôi nhà tình thương nơi anh khôn lớn.

Trong tập 17, chúng tôi đã vào miền Trung để gặp Trần Văn Nhật. Anh mồ côi cha mẹ từ bé và phải rời ngôi làng nhỏ của mình lên sống ở thành phố Huế.

Anh hiện đang làm việc tại mái ấm nơi anh được nuôi lớn. Cùng anh đi dạo quanh Đại Nội, chúng tôi đã trò chuyện về cuộc sống ở nông thôn, về việc cải thiện cuộc sống của những đứa trẻ đang trải qua bi kịch giống anh và việc tìm kiếm thành công dù thất bại trong học tập.

This is Vietnam’s Renovation Generation. Sonic portraits of young minds re-shaping the country’s future.

For episode 17 we travelled to central Vietnam to meet Tran Van Nhật. His start in life was very different to most of the Renovation Generationer’s. We met him in Huế’s town centre.  

When I was young, my Mother take me to the city once, but I didn’t remember that much…

Born in 1991, Nhật grew up in a village of only 300 people outside of Huế.

It's a small village, small houses, small street. The river divides the river into two. It’s a peaceful place. Since I moved  back to Huế to work I spend my weekend there... go fishing…

He would have lived there until university age, but when he was nine, the course of his life changed dramatically.

We had another conversation with him on Skype…

My Father passed away when I was in Grade 3, then three years later my Mother passed away.

So himself and his youngest Brother were taken to live in the shelter, a home for orphaned children to live and study in Huế.

It was a very hard time for me and for everyone else in the family as well. My Brother and my Sister had to skip school so we can afford me and my younger brother to continue on studying.

This is when Nhật and his youngest brother spent the rest of their childhood, along with 41 other kids, from Grade 1 to university age.

It’s like a life I never ever imagined that I can have, you know back home I don’t have anything, I don't know anything. Come to the shelter I have my own bed, I have people taking care of me, I have friends, I have books and pens, I have everything, I have night clothes and I go to a school that ten times bigger than the school I got to from my village. It’s like my home town was Huế and then Huế was like New York.

But it wasn’t all happiness in the shelter. Being older, he can reflect back now on parts of growing up there, which were really difficult.

I remember there’s a time they build a fence. They build a fence between the kids house and the staff houses, make people think they came here to live, but it’s not like a home.

Volunteers coming from around the world for their Vietnam experience

You can learn from them a lot, but it’s also a disadvantage for the kids, because it's like you know people come and you get close and then they leave. Sometime they come back sometimes they don’t. Some of the kids they spend time with them and they don't care about school, they don’t study, they don't do anything.

 The typical teenage exam pressures came in school.

My dream was to become an English teacher at the time, but I failed my test and I was so down, I was like really disappointed.

So how did he react to losing his dream future?  

I left the shelter and then I got a job as a waiter and working in the hospitality for a couple of years, and I think phew, lucky, lucky I didn’t pass the university test.