I.1. Facts and needs of patients:
 
II.1.1.Facts

The National Hospital of Pediatrics (NHP) specializes in treating pediatrics patients from all over the country. The hospital consists of 22 departments, with the number of permanent treating patients adding up to 800-1000, ages raging from infancy to nearly 17 years old. The majority of them are afflicted with difficult-to-cure ailments, such as hematologist and nephrologists. Treatment time is often long, depending entirely upon the patients’ condition, special cases may last over 3 years. Most patients come from the low-income class, with parents working in the agriculture sector, living a rather low standard of life. There are up to 300 patients who are in desperate need of regular assistance.
During treatment period, the patients do not have access to learning or participating in common leisure activities. The hospital itself is deficient in organizing psychology-care activities for its patients. Although 7 recreation rooms have been successfully established, catering for the patients of 22 departments, they are still lacking in facilities and toys, not meeting the requests of the patients. In addition, there are only 2-3 personnel on duty so only once or twice a week are these facilities open to the patients.

Pediatrics patients have a full right to a healthy development, both physically and spiritually like everyone else. They also have a desire to communicate, play and receive knowledge. Efforts have been made by all doctors and nurses in the hospital, but they are not likely to meet all of the patients’ needs. Furthermore, the patients’ family is often in need of financial aid and help with the care of their relatives.

II.1.2. Objectives

‘Children today, the world tomorrow.’ The majority of the disadvantaged in our society are children and juveniles, who are the most vulnerable to abuse and injustice. In fact, their needs have been inadequately attended to, particularly for disadvantaged children and pediatrics patients. Thus helping them at this stage is essential and beneficial not only to their families, and themselves, but also the welfare of our society.
The project ensures the fundamental rights to physical and spiritual growth for pediatrics patients, like communication, knowledge, amusement, creative games and physical exercise. At the same time, volunteers also support children’s families in difficulties with finances, management and caring.
Our society’s attention has not been sufficient to the patients’ needs. As a result, the project will help call for help from philanthropists and sponsors to contribute effort towards a better life for those patients.

II.2. Project details “Bring a smile, Soothe the pain”
The project constitutes four main activities Organize play sessions
Offer help and advice to families with infant patients
Provide bedside psychological care – activity theme “Big brothers. Big sisters”
Invest in constructing and upgrading the system of play rooms and playgrounds at the hospital.

II.2.1. Play sessions

Objectives : According to our surveys, 100 % of boarding patients felt bored with the hospital life. The children had no access to fun and company, and so most of them were affected with psychological illnesses like timidity on discharge from the hospital. In addition, bad moods significantly influence curing possibility and a health recovery. Thus, this program has been installed with a view to creating a regular healthy environment for the permanent patients in the Pediatrics hospital, where they can access stimulating amusement.
Groups aimed at: children from 3 to 16 years of age.
Description : Play sessions are held every week at every department, with specific activities listed below:
Simple fun games
Story reading, drama performances, magic shows
Singing activities: teach the children fun songs with simple exercise
Handicraft and art instructions: drawing, card making, star folding.

Time: each play session lasts 2 hours.
Location - National Pediatric hospital of Vietnam

II.2.2. Assist families with infants:
- Objective: It is a great worry for any family with small children staying in hospital. As for this age, children cannot look after themselves so parents have to take special care of them all the time, which not only costs a great deal of money, but also causes tiredness and depression. Therefore, it is essential that these parents receive help and assistance.
- Object: patient aged 0-2 and their parents.
- Activities: Volunteers can assist the families in tending the children: making meals, rubbing them down after bathing, playing with them, singing lullabies for them to go to sleep. As for parents, volunteers will become consultants, friends to talk to when they feel weary or have a hard time.
- Location: in patients’ room.
- Time: 1-2 times/ week, 30 minutes to 1 hour/ time depending on the arrangement of volunteers and the need of the parents
- Requirements: Looking after infants requires great care and sensitivity, therefore there is an age limit of over 18, an you must either already have experience of tending to small children or undertake a special training program organized by SJ-Vietnam. Volunteers are also required to be knowledgeable in this field in order to be able to give advice to parents.

II.2.3. Brothers and Sisters
- Objective: Be a friend and a mentor to sick children, much like their brothers and sisters. Children can share their worries and difficulties with their Brothers/Sisters and rely on them for help and advice. They are also encouraged to take part in entertaining activities to forget the pain, feel better, get well soon, and have no difficulties in integrating when coming back to their families and schools.

- Objects: Patients aged 3-16, with serious illnesses or who have just been operated on, they always feel tired and cannot get out of bed.
- Activities: bed-side activities
  + Reading books to or with the children.
  + Talking, discussing favourite topics.
  + Mild recreational activities: drawing, painting, writing journals, puzzles, Rubix cubes, Lego and Origami .
  + Giving advice to problems as well as answers to their questions on various issues.
  + Tutor academic subjects to them in order to make up for their absence at school
- Location: in patients’ room.
- Time: 1-2 times/week, 30 minutes to 1 hour/ time, depending on the arrangement of volunteers and the need of the patients

II.2.4. Playrooms and playgrounds:
II.2.4.1. Playrooms:
- Objective: equip playrooms of the hospitals with a variety of books and toys to meet the demands of patients.
- Activities:
  + use part of the sponsored money to buy different kinds of toys for entertaining, educating, mentally and physically developing purpose (the types depend on each mental health characteristics.)
  + Buy or collect different kinds of books, newspapers, comics, and text books for tutoring purposes.
  + The playrooms will be open all days and run by groups of volunteers, these volunteers are also responsible for keeping the equipment in good condition. Patients can only borrow books/ toys and must return them to the playrooms once they are discharged. In special cases (children who are extremely poor, or  seriously ill) can take their favourite objects home.
  + This program is run at the same time with Brothers and Sisters program, in which volunteers bring books and toys to patients’ beds.

II.2.4.2. Playgrounds:
- Objective: set up playgrounds in different parts of the hospital to encourage children to get out of bed and take part in physical games.
- Activities in the hospital’s ground:
  + the biggest playground
  + Use part of the sponsored money to buy large equipments: merry-go-round and swings etc.
  + This equipment is scattered all around the hospital’s ground.
 
- Activities in each department’s small ground:
  + The hospital has an 8-storey building; each of its floors has a small space where equipment will be placed.
  + As these small playgrounds are close to patients’ room,  it is convenient for those who cannot go far from bed.
 
- Volunteers and parents are responsible to watch children while they are playing.
- Every 3 months, the equipment will be checked to warrant safety.

III. This is a highly innovative project:

Up till now, there have been many projects whose aims are to support street children and handicapped children. But, there are hardly any volunteers or educational organizations responsible for ill children. With the children’s conditions the treatment process affects their and their families, whole life.
The National Hospital of Pediatrics is the poorest hospital in our country, while they have to treat a very specialized group of patients: children; and they have to pay for it mostly by health insurance, therefore, the material facilities and the working conditions of the staff are both very bad. Until now, all the support for the hospital concentrates on the facilities, not on the children mental health. The recreation rooms only have a few toys donated by foreigners, but they also are not very effective as most of the books are in English, so the children are unable to understand them easily.

The success criteria of the project:

+ To the patients and their families:
         * Help the patients in the hospital have the opportunity to keep in touch with the outside world.
         * Help the patients feel more confident, thus, making them deal with their illness more easily. Furthermore, make a good relationship with the patients who have to stay in hospital for a long period of time (3-6 months.)
         * Help reduce the burden of the illness on the family.
+ To the project:
         * Get the project into a routine with a stable number of volunteers, toys, books, etc.
         * Preserve the facilities well.
         * Use the investment money wisely so that the project can last longer.

+ Make a good relationship with the hospital so as to extend the project
+ Promote the project to attract more investment and sponsorship
+ Gain the relative experience in order to apply this volunteer project to other hospitals in Hanoi city and all the country.

Other details of the project:
-        Requirements for the volunteers:
         + Age: 16-30
         + Occupation: pupils, students living in Hanoi
         + Have a love for children, be enthusiastic and responsible.
         + Be able to go to the hospital at least 3 times a week for the activities.
         +Volunteer who wants to attend this project must send in an application form, and will have to take a short course.

Manage the volunteers:

The list of volunteers will occasionally be informed to the board of directors of the hospital. Each volunteer will be given a volunteer card, which will help them get into the hospital.
The volunteers will work in groups – each group is responsible for one department. The head of the group will control all volunteer activities in the department. Each month, there will be a meeting between the heads of the groups and the project leaders. The members and the leaders can contact each other via our own website.

        
IV. BENEFICIARIES AND PARTICIPANTS:

IV.1. The beneficiaries of the project:
- Direct beneficiaries:
         + Children patients: about 800-1,000 patients of both genders
         + The patients' parents
- Indirect beneficiaries:
         + Student volunteers
         + The doctors, nurses and employees who are currently working in the hospital.

IV.2. The beneficiaries who take part in the project fund-raising and planning process:
Among the above mentioned beneficiaries are young volunteers who are currently high school students (the group of students from 11 A1, Hanoi - Amsterdam Specialized Secondary School). With the help of experienced volunteers from SJ Vietnam and the Young Volunteer's "For the Poor" group, they play a very important role in fund-raising and the planning of the project. All volunteers are involved in the whole process from the original survey, to brainstorming to the scheduling phase.
The doctors, the patients' parents and the patients themselves also participate enthusiastically in the survey and support the project.

IV.3. The participation of the beneficiaries in the project and level of participation:
- Young patients are the direct beneficiaries of the project and they take part in all of the mental and physical care activities.
- As they would carry out the project from the start, student volunteers are the most active and important participants.

IV.4. The participation of the beneficiaries after the project is finished:
- Material facilities set up during the project will remain at the hospital and the doctors and hospital employees will be in charge of maintaining and upgrading them, which results in long-term significance and benefits.
- Children will return home in a good state of heath so that they can continue their study. No longer will the time they spend at the hospital become a horrible experience, it will be filled with joyful memories. Young patients can also distribute the games and songs they were taught by volunteers to their family and friends. At the same time, their parents will not only introduce and promote the project, but they can also help to apply the project in their local area.
- After the project has finished, the volunteers will have gained many helpful experiences. The most confident of them will continue to apply the project at other hospitals in Hanoi and other provinces.

IV.5. Local members in charge of submitting the project:
- SJ Vietnam: Mr. Pierre de Hanscutter, founder and Miss Do Thi Phuc ,director of SJ Vietnam.
- "For the Poor" group - Young Volunteers Club.
- National Hospital of Pediatrics of Hanoi

IV.6. How will the applicants maintain the project and their responsibilities after the project is done:

In order to maintain the results of the project and bring long-term benefits to the beneficiaries, SJ Vietnam commits to:

IV.6.1. With regard to the hospital and sponsors:
SJ Vietnam commits to perform the project on schedule. The purpose of this project is to bring happiness and laughter to disadvantaged children through entertainment and knowledge-broadening activities while they stay in hospital. In order for the project to be maintained effectively and continually, SJ Vietnam will cooperate with other volunteer organizations to welcome more experienced and enthusiastic volunteers. Those volunteers will be trained to ensure patients' safety and follow the project's guidelines. A syllabus with essential skills and information which are essential for the volunteers will soon be published, contributing to the application of the project in other community care centers.

IV.6.2. With regard to the volunteers engaging in the project:
SJ Vietnam guarantees the health of the volunteers while they participate in the project. All of them will have to be trained carefully before taking part in the project. According to their own wills, they can also take part in other community development projects by SJ Vietnam after this project is finished.

SJ Vietnam is also willing to cooperate with any organizations or individuals who wish to deploy this model in their area, in both experience and human resources problems.

The organization Solidarités Jeunesses Vietnam (SJ Vietnam) is a non-profit international youth volunteering organization in Hanoi, Vietnam. It is a small organization, set up for, and by young volunteers. In december 2007, 3207 young vietnamese volunters were official members of SJ Vietnam.Our volunteers are active in the organization as work camp leaders, project managers or as volunteer on our local projects.

The goals of SJ Vietnam are:
• Work towards a society of justice, peace and solidarity.
• Break cultural misunderstanding between peoples and nations.
• Improve local and global environment, provide non-formal education, reduce poverty and establish human rights.
• Encourage young people to participate actively in the society in which they live.

SJ Vietnam organizes mainly 4 kind of activities: local activities during all the year (mainly for local volunteers living in Hanoi), international workcamp (hosting and sending volunteers), long term voluntary projects (hosting and sending long term volunteers) and promotion of International Volunteerism .All these activities are the specific tools of our organization to reach our goals about youth education, peace, tolerance, and solidarity.
All our activities are open to everybody: to join our activities, you need only to buy your annual member card or to be sent by a voluntary organization partner of SJV.

Two short video presentations of SJV can be downloaded at http://vietnam.solidaritesjeunesses.org/video/sjvpresentation/sjvnetchua.mpg (in vietnamese) and at http://vietnam.solidaritesjeunesses.org/video/sjvpresentation/sjvpresentation.mpg (in english)

SJ Vietnam is proudly a non-professional youth organization ;except our secretary staff, all the organization is completely managed by everyday youth themselves from Vietnam and around the world. All the local and international activities are imagined and realized collectively by the members. SJ Vietnam is a youth organization FOR young people BY the young people.

All SJ volunteers (national and international) are non-paid. We donate our time for free because we believe in the goals of our projects and they are most important for us.
During the year, SJ Vietnam organizes local activities open to everybody: visit to museums with poor children, lessons for street children, environmental activities, autumn festival for child victims of the Orange Agent, free lunch for poor children, cultural and leisure activities, etc.

Each week at least one activity is organized, contact the secretary to get our calendar.

Feel free to join us, you are welcome!!

SJ Vietnam organizes and promotes international workcamps throughout the year and trains workcamp leaders to run them. The over 40 international camps in vietnam aim to promote:
1. Volunteerism, friendship and solidarity among young people.
2. Awareness of local, national and international issues.    
3. Improvement on quality of life. (Water filters for people living on Red river, free medicine for those with TB, information about HIV and sexual health, leisure and cultural activities, environmental projects, etc…)
4. Cultural exchange by living together.

Each year, SJ Vietnam uses to host around 300 international short and long term international volunteers coming from different voluntary organization around the world. If you live outside Vietnam and you want to join one of our workcamp, contact your national voluntary organization (check the section "partners" on this web site). You can see our list of workcamps in vietnam in the section "workcamp" on this web site.

But SJ Vietnam is also a sending organization : SJ Vietnam trough an international network of partners offers to Vietnamese volunteers the opportunity to join international workcamp abroad as volunteer. At this time around 30 countries are accessible to Vietnamese Volunteers (France, UK, Mexico, Germany, Thailand, Korea, Japan, China; Mongolia, etc). And each year more that one thousand projects are available…

In parrallele, to assure high quality workcamps, SJ Vietnam organizes week-end workshop to train workcamp leaders.

To know more about workcamp, see the section "workcamps & LTV " on this web site

A long term project is a little bit like a workcamp but longer (between 1 and 6 month). More motivation is required from the volunteer but it also provides more rewards. Long Term Volunteerism with SJ Vietnam gives the opportunity to foreign volunteers to join our long term projects in Vietnam .

SJ Vietnam through this network also offers long term opportunities to Vietnamese volunteers to be volunteer abroad.

To know more about LTV, see the section "workcamps & LTV " on this web site

SJ Vietnam is also actif on the internal stage to promote the philisophy of workcamps and international solidarity between youth people. In this frame, SJ Vietnam is an active member of NDVA and CCIVS.