Glocal Ventures

GVI mobilized two volunteer teams to work in Lao Cai province. Skelly Drive Baptist Church from Tulsa, OK sent a team of 7 to San Sa Ho school in Sapa district, and NorthWood Church from Keller, TX sent a team of 8 to Bac Ha district.

San Sa Ho school drive

The team from Skelly Drive worked hard to pave the driveway for San Sa Ho school. Students and teachers will greatly appreciate this, particularly when it rains since the rain often turns Sapa dirt roads (and schoolyards) into slippery, muddy and nearly impassable messes. They also donated a Reverse-Osmosis filter that will provide clean, safe drinking water for the school. More importantly than the work, the team strengthened and deepened friendships that we started a year ago. They did this by working side by side with the staff and students, by stretching themselves to taste new and interesting foods with the school and by literally stretching themselves during morning exercises with the students.

Morning Techno

The team from NorthWood reunited in Hanoi with their HYBA-BEST friends from the Corporate Responsibility Study Tour Very shortly after arriving at their hotel, they were enthusiastically and warmly hosted by members of the Study Tour who were all eager to return the hospitality they were showed in Texas (we even heard of heated discussions about who had the privilege of hosting the volunteers!). The team then went to Lao Cai to follow up on GVI-NorthWood’s one-year old Poverty Alleviation program in Lau Thi Ngai commune. They were joined by members of the Study Tour. In Texas, they saw the “local” part of Glocal Ventures’ service engagement in Texas - now they were going to see the global part of it.

Lunch in Lau Thi Ngai

The NorthWood-GVI team met with local partners about the effectiveness of the program. They learned that adjusting the program to provide larger loan amounts - which would  enable poor families to buy a water buffalo - could quickly help many of them escape poverty. (And speaking of escapes, read about Vicky Scott’s miraculous escape from injury.)

Hospitality seemed to be the theme of the trip: even families in this needy community spared no expense in putting on a lavish meal for the guests (BEST members bought a goat to add to the meal). Afterwards the villagers (from the Flower Hmong minority) put on a cultural show of dances and songs in the light of a bonfire (to which the NorthWood volunteers responded by teaching them the Hokey Pokey).

The team spent the last part of their trip at Nam Mon school. They taught hygiene classes (which were so popular and fun that students who had had the lessons last November wanted to hear them again). They also renovated and rebuilt the school kitchen to improve hygiene. They paved the floor of the kitchen, provided a countertop so that food would not have to be prepared on the dirt floor and built a brick oven and chimney for better ventilation. BEST members also made a generous donation of school supplies, clothes and food to the school. The NorthWood team plans to return to the school in November, if for nothing else than to avenge their loss in tug-of-war to some skinny, scappy Nam Mon middle-schoolers.

Giant Killers!

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