１）This is Trung Son commune, 5 hours drive from Hanoi. Most of their income is from rice and cassava. The house in the middle of the picture is the community center and pre-school, and the 4 day Education Training was held with 45 teachers. Shizuyo Sato and Wayne Ellsworth are seen coming back from the workshop.

２）The first day of Education Training workshop. The Trung Son commune's chairman, Mr. Hen, is giving the welcoming speech. From the left, Mr. Hen, Shizuyo Sato, Wayne Ellswoth, and the local translator / facilitator, Mr.Hao. The teachers and parents are very interested in international Education training workshop.

３） The ICA's Education training includes Personal style, Learning styles, etc. The participants were discovering their personal styles and start exchanging their opinions about their own style.

４）The Education training in Van Son commune. In this lecture, they are learning about how environment, culture and social are related with education. Shizuyo Sato is going around each table and making sure that participants understand.

５)The education training for Van Son and Luc Son commune showing a lecture about participation methods, communication etc. After the lecture, we take time for the participants to exchange their opinions. The participants talk about their school, education and life. In the picture is Mrs.Huong, a national education specialist.

６）The participants seldom had a chance to be trained, so they listen very carefully to the lecture. A few participants spent 3 hours by motor-bike coming from their homes.This training was a new stlyle of the education in communes, I wanted to attend the training, said the participant.

７）In the roleplay of personal-style, they act the position of a doctor and patiant. After they understand their partner's personal style, they roleplay the position one more time and see the different reactions and the process.

８）The group photo in Trung Son commune after the 4 day education training. We hope we can have more opportunities to be trained, said the participants. They talked about how they can reflect the training program in the future.

９）After the Education training, each participant receives a certificate, handled to them by Shizuyo Sato and Wayne Ellsworth.

１０）Meeting with the Luc Son people's commitee. They were very pleased with the education training, which Shizuyo and Wayne held in this commune. They are explaining about the school situation.

１１）Interview the kindregarden teacher. They want more contributions from children's parents. The teacher's salary is about $10.00 per month.

In Vietnam, children under 10 years old are not allowed to walk over 10 km to go to school.

１２）They cannot afford new teaching aids, so the teachers make the aids with used wrapping paper, card-boards and used boxes. They hand-write numbers and letters and teach the children. In the picture on the left are hand-made aids used for 20 to 25 children. They use these teaching aids over and over.

１３） The teachers are asking the children's parents to contribute $3.00 a year to the school, but most of the parents can not afford that amount of money. So the schools don't have money to buy teaching aids, marterials and supplies.

１５）This is the average size of the rice field in Vietnam. Basically, they have tripple cropping, with rice 2 times and in between, they grow corn. They start working around 5 am in the field. Many parents want their children to help work in the fields rather than attending school.

１６） This is the school library. These are the books which 200 students can use, and these are not enough at all. There are about 10 sets of text books for each grades, total about 60 books. (each book costs about $0.30)

１７）Kindergarden teaching aids for about 30 children. They use the empty coke cans on the 2nd shelf from the top to learn calculation and use plastic fruits to roleplay shopping. They just have one picture story in the village.

１８）Material storage of Minh Luong commune school. It's about 8 Tatami size. This type of storage's condition is much better than that of other communes. But still the map poster and language posters are damaged from the weather and humidity.

Government funded Secondary Schools

１９）The elementary school which was funded by the Vietnam government. From grade 5 is studying in this building.

Kindergauden and primary school

２０）Even in the central school in Minh Lung commune, this room is the average class room.

２１）Van Son village does not have class rooms or storage for Kindergarden, so they keep the teaching aids in the neighbor's house.

２２）In this school, they don't have enough classes and teachers for 3 grades, so 1 teacher is teaching 3 grades at the same time. They have 3 black boards for each grade. Grade 1, 2 and 3, from the right to the left, are shown.

２３）Kindergarden in Minh Lung commune. It is very old and you can see inside of this class room. In front of this room, there is a fine built school for secondary, funded by Vietnam government. By seeing the school building and the situation of the classrooms, you can see that kindergardenﾕs support from the government is just a little.

２４）Inside of the kindergarden. The desks and chairs are used by everyone, so the childrenﾕs legs are not touching the ground and the height of the desk is up to their shoulder. Some desks are damaged, but they don't have tools to fix them.

２５）Sight of the physical education class. They have a huge playground, but they don't have sports balls, courts nor measures, so they play games, sing and dance in physical education class.

２６）Satellite school in Van Son commune. Many children from the neighborhood come to this school, but there is few teaching aids for the students.

２８）The central school in Van Son. The road to the school is very steep and dangerous and children walk from their house to attend the school. There is a law Children who are under 10 years-old must not walk more that 1 km for attending schoolﾓ but unfortunately, some children have to walk more than 3 km.

Purchasing the Teaching Aids

２９）The teaching material shop for kindergarden and primary school in Hanoi. After we purchase, we delivered to 6 communes. The people in the commune have to confirm the items, so we provide a list and count all the items we receive.

３０）To the communes that have very bad road conditions, we had to take 4WD car. But 4WD can take only 8 boxes, so in some cases we took 2 x 4WD cars.

３１）Arriving at LucSon commune. 2 to 3 men had to carry each box, because the weight is at least 20kg and some of them were even 50 to 60kg!

Teaching Aids Delivery

３２）The road to Trung Son commune is very bad. Since they have a construction for the road to build a new school. When it rains, the river floods and we wouldnﾕt be able to go back to Hanoi. The tires slip in the mud, so the villagers helped us by runing a bulldozer before us to harden the road.

３３）When we arrived at Trung Son, many people came to see what is going on. We like as many people as possible to come and understand the process. And to use the funded material as public use and not personal.

３４）After 4 hours by boat, we got to TanDan commune. The ethnic minority Muong welcomed us. Here the children take school boat to the islandﾓ and climb up the mountain 2 hours, 5 days a week.

Considering the situation in the school, we put the teaching aids in a hard foil boxes and protect them from humidity and dusts

３６）In TanDan commune, about 20 students and villagers helped us to take the boxes full with material to the school, which is located on top of the mountain. As you can see, they put a stick through the handle and climbed the mountain. This way, it is much more easy to carry such a heavy box.

３７）On the box, we put labels sayingMinistry of Foreign Affairs: Japanﾓ andICA Japanﾓ. The people in the village can not read English, so we put English labels and Vietnamese labels.

３８）After we deliver the items which they requested, we called the people from the District, Village, Teachers, Parents and Students and explain about the process and the items. After they confirm the items, people in the commune sign the sheet.

３９）From the interview, we were able to deliver things which commune really needed and wanted. In Trung Son case, materials for the kindergarden and for primary school, maps and language materials were the main aids.

４０）Children of the Van Son commune. They are coloring the coloring books, using their new coloring pencils. At first, they didn't care what was written on the books and just put color, but after the teacher taught how to color the characters, they started to see the bold lines and try not to run off from the lines.

４１）Mathmatics and sports aids. Posters are Vietnam maps, world maps and Posters of Behaviour. Materials in the boxes depended on what they needed, but the earth ball and posters were common needed aids in all 6 communes.

４２）Local coordinator Mr. Le Van Hao, who is introducing the materials for the Kindergarden and explaning how to use them. Its easy to understand picture books, but when it goes to cooking set and doctor toys, explanation is needed to children and teachers.

４３）The picture of LucSon communeﾕs teaching material delivery. 2 people from the Vietnam auditing company came with us to see the ICA activity. They were very interested in Education Environment Support Program.

Road to the school

４４）The road to the school in TanDan commune. 4 hours by ship to this point and 2 to 3 hours climbing up the mountain. Children are going to school 5 days a week. They donﾕt have school busﾓ but they have school boatﾓ.

４５）。 The house in DuSang commune. They don't have anything to divide the large room. They have space for family and space for kitchen and space for the customer. They have shelf of gods, and the father sleeps in front of the shelf of gods.

Other activities

４６）The school which JSDF funded. Every body in the commune cant wait to study in this nice building.

※JSDF...Japan Social Development Fund

NTT Union Environmental WorkCamp

In both DuSang and TrungTien commune, we stayed at the local house for cultural exchange. They have wooden high level houses and we stayed 1 night at each house. More than 300 people came to the celebration in the evening.When we visited the school, ICA and NTT contributed stationaries, writing materials and traditional Japanese toys.

４８）Local Youth union members, teachers and students helped us plant Cao arround the school. Cao grows up very fast and after 1year 10m, after 5 year it grows up to 20m to 30m. DuSang school assigned 2 students per tree to look after them. They put their names on the sign board.

The small nursary tree in front of the group is the very first tree they planted. The two girls who are assigned for this first tree are in the picture (middle).

５０）NTT Union members goal was 1000 trees at first. But with local peoples help, they were able to plant almost double the number of trees. Then they had vollyball game, Undo-kai(Japanese style sports day). This picture is Mr.Bois family and his house. The place they home-stayed.