three years ago me and my friends
happened to travel to small village in
the northwest regions of Vietnam and in
the mountain area there is a lot of
ethnic group people and we happen to see
this small little schools which is about
30 square meter Olli for 30 children and
at that time they have little space
basically to learn and they want to draw
but they cannot afford papers and
crayons and after the meeting with them
me and my friend coming back and have a
very serious meeting about Lesbia school
and you know at that time we 5 woman
basically fully employed in insurance
banking investment we’re not really sure
about school and construct and building
without knowing about architecture and
basically we have no money not not
anything so at that time we’re just
thinking about how can we build a school
and then one person say well if you
cannot pay for it then ask someone to
pay for it so we did we go on Facebook
we put on some informations about the
score and and then we write to them
about asking them to contribute to our
project of building the score and
absolutely at that time Facebook was
more you know attractive than a
crowdfunding platform and cheaper free
so basically that’s what how it used to
communicate but what we learn from doing
this project is we divided the people
involved in the project in 3 Tucket the
first one is the organizer which means
us and anyone who hosting this project
the second one is a beneficiary
obviously the children’s and the teacher
the school and the third one is the
donors stakeholders anyone interested in
the project because we believe doing one
project can bring beneficiary not only
to them but to everyone involved and so
we put a story on Facebook and having
run up some few cow crowdfunding
campaigns and at that time we aim
working people because you know student
they very inside
six enthusiastic but they cannot pay and
all you know have a lot of financial
capacity to build school and visit his
people office ladies actually they spend
a lot of time surfing Facebook and they
can use a little you know he use it more
effectively by helping us to do some
good things and after about three months
we able to raise twelve thousand dollars
from scratch to build a school which is
perfect and one good thing I learned
about that is people are actually very
kind and supportive given that you know
you give them a chance to do and give
them a chance to join hang with you and
our first project was the huge success
and we think that now we believe more in
life and humanity’s not not that gloomy
news feeding with people getting cure
environment being polluted but with
people actually supporting and
encouraging each other so it came to the
second project this one is also
accidentally we saw this school too and
in a further further areas in the
northern and borders between Vietnam and
China and it’s even poorer and to build
the school we need $20,000 so for us the
first project was about the beneficiary
which other students who received the
schools and also to us who first time
learn how to function the project and
this time when we organize the project
would turn it into a free playground
where they can be creative with what
they can do because one of the donor
used to tell us that I want to have you
a lot but I don’t have money and what we
want to do is we want to show them that
they don’t really need cash in hand or
money too hot and doing good things they
can be creative they can be anything and
they really are so where after we
launched that can paint about you can do
whatever at love as long as you can you
know how to build a school some people
an artist she hosts a drawing sessions
to fundraising an artist she hosts a
whole week of musical events for raising
awareness and also
fundraising of camera man’s he sewed up
his plans to donate the money and a very
special case where a free young
freelancer offer herself to do work to
earn the donations and then she got
recognized and earned a project in
Cambodia which is amazing so when they
involved in the project it’s not only
about the student they themselves earn
something and when we have people
telling us that thank you
to give us a chance to give you money
that means they benefit from it and so
the second school were also built
perfectly this was the photos back from
one of our donors from Japan and he just
visited recently but just something was
off so we build two schools and then I
don’t know if because our slogan was
started with the school we start receive
a lot of enquiries so they now not only
need schools they need textbooks they
need teachers who can actually teach
them they need access to more
information because otherwise they still
drop out from school and they cannot
even they graduated they cannot compete
with citizen students in the cities for
higher education and then their parents
are too poor to really offer them the
chance to go to school and this was
really overwhelming because one school
doesn’t make that much difference as we
expect it and a lot of people think that
it was already a very sustainable way to
support them by education but it’s not
it’s just the beginning so after two
years I stopped the building the school
first reason is I want to reviews on how
we can do it better
second because thanks to the project I
also have an opportunity for scholarship
to Japan which is for my own and then I
was thinking about who are the really
beneficiary from these projects it’s us
who learn how to function a project who
get connected to very kind people there
are donors who really got offer
from umpires who really interested in
their work in showing then kindness
those who really have a good reputation
for involving in the project but then I
realized that the students who should be
the primary beneficiary may not be the
one who benefit the most from this kind
of project so when I travel to Japan
what I can see is the Japan have a very
good community’s sense of communities
that they willing to involve themselves
to solve their own problem and in the
program that I’m studying they have this
motto that community can solve what
community can and the government can
offer them the space to do it and that’s
when we learned that if it’s not come
from the inner of the communities we can
never solve the problem we can keep you
in the school like I used to think of I
will build one school per year but then
I realized that in the mountain there
are about 20 school so after I finished
building was 20 schools I have to go
back to do the first one so this circle
may not end if the people in that
community
do not act buy them for themselves and a
lot of people tell us that all because
it’s Japan they can do it it’s not
Vietnamese but I don’t think so so on my
way doing the second project I happen to
visit a very small village close by this
school and in this village they are
making a product like handmade from the
lining fabric and it’s all from natural
ingredients which is look really
interesting and you know a lot of
tourists have been visiting this village
so I came to the village and asked for
their story because the environment via
is so different the woman are happy the
man the woman in the village you know
blending together because if you have
been to those and a group in the
mountain you can see that woman mostly
walking outdoor in the field and the man
should sit in one place drinking they do
not you know really support it but it’s
different in this village so I came and
asked
and so they share the story about in
1995 woman of this village decided to
make a change to their life and they
thought they’d get together to make a
line and fabric cooperative where the
woman can work extra time outside of
farming to make some fabric – firstly
for our fabric to sell to the market it
started five women only and it’s not
easy for them for the first years they
have two wins against the traditions
because in some village woman are not
allowed to communicate outside the
village oh they can’t do business they
have to stay in the kitchen during the
house core but in the village is
different the woman decided to stand up
for themselves the first years the man
burned their line in field and they even
burned their weaving frame because they
don’t want them to do it they don’t
believe the woman can really sell
something outside of crops and farming
products so the first three years was
very different until one day they could
earn some money from the products and
though head of the copper is easy visit
one house she did not call out the wife
who actually do the work
she caught out a husband and say this is
the money that your wife have been
earned by doing this products and from
that moment and though men let the woman
to build and you know to continue her
work with the land and fabric which is
the exception in many other village and
so after 16 years now a day they have a
hundred and thirteen members or woman
working in this plus one mill member
which is already a very progressive to
what gender abilities in this village
and they will have been have been very
well known in many others countries but
because they haven’t known how to make a
branding for themselves they haven’t
known how to really develop it to a
marketplace basically they do it and
then they just start to retailer so few
people know about it but that interest
me what interests me me the most is the
community here is very United and they
really stand
to solve their own problem and that’s
what I found missing in my two previous
project because in my previous project
when I came to the village they feel too
ashamed to let us photograph their house
which they believe is not beautiful and
they are too
you know they’re too shy they always say
that we are too poor to do anything we
cannot do anything you are very low
educated and that’s what we what we
don’t really want to hear from them they
actually Adel they can catch serve it
from consult the problem too but maybe
we took away their opportunity to solve
the problem by offering our hub without
asking them so for the first two project
I involved my friends I invoke the
donors the stakeholders but I forgot to
involve the people who can you know join
hand at some point too and that’s why we
make this chain this year so this year I
came back to the village and asked them
to with us somehow and what we’re trying
to do is to get to what to know what
they really needs from us to really help
them leverage their business with their
fabric and how they can can support them
with you know increasing the economic
life and also the children can get to
sew to school we’ve been there since
October and after a while we learned
that they want to have a better working
place so they can enlarge the
cooperative not only to 130 members but
400 members and also training class for
the next generations which is very
interesting and so this is where I learn
the lessons that give me it’s not better
as in the bully sometimes we give but we
unconsciously take away the chance to
stop their own problem but if we enable
them to think and enable them to do it
to reach the to their potentials we can
learn something too and we are not only
the one who gives them but we also
receive the lesson from them so I
believe that everybody here can start a
project to build a school like we did
but let’s take an extra step of asking
them and involve them in the projects
so that we can enable them to everybody
and enable you us and them to continue
the process instead of we giving them
something and then left misleaded when
we left thank you [Applause]