Evonne's Adventures in Ho Chi Minh

Hey Everyone!

My name is Evonne and welcome to my travel segment!

      I wanted to include a travel section to share with you all my exciting adventures and experiences prior to and during my travels in Vietnam. One of the main reasons I've chosen to travel to Vietnam in particular was to go back to my roots and initially, it was to find my family from my dad's side (I'll get into this topic later). I guess you can say it's more for self-discovery and creating myself in the sense of building the person I want to be. To be honest, I have so many passions but don't know exactly what I want to do specifically in life right now and what I'm looking for. However, my desire to embrace challenges, learn and experience new things that I'm not familiar with will create many opportunities for myself such as connecting to my roots through culture, language, traditions, and good food (I love Phở). That is what has intrigued me to take this opportunity to volunteer and to help those that are less fortunate than myself.

                                      

For all of you who don't already know, I will be volunteering under an organization called International Volunteer HQ. It is one of the most affordable volunteer organizations around and has grown to cover a variety of projects from several countries. Projects that are available include but are not limited to Teaching, Childcare, Community Development, Medical,Construction and Renovation, Turtle Conservation, and Wildlife Conservation. 

In Vietnam, poverty still affects millions of people, in vulnerable populations (e.g., elderly, students, disabled, low-income individuals). These populations for the most part are unable to provide the basic necessities of food, water, and shelter. Attempts to temporarily address issues of hunger within this population is through the operation of soup kitchens that provides meals for hundreds of people. What I mean by "temporarily address" is this is not a long-term solution to feeding a poverty stricken population. Lowering rates of poverty in a population requires us to address the root of the problem. Some ideas include analyzing economic growth and creating poverty reduction strategies as well as researching solutions and including government involvement to address the complexity of this issue. So in the future, long-term sustainable changes are made that can positively impact the community at large. Eradicating hunger is in no way an easy task but we're making a continuous effort to make that change happen one day. 

My volunteer role is categorized as community development and I will be working on feeding the homeless. The soup kitchen is situated in a church in Ho Chi Minh. The soup kitchen is able to continually operate from donations made from individuals, the church, companies, and donors. Some of my roles include food preparation, interacting with the population, and to maintain cleanliness of the kitchen. Additional roles may be included depending on experience but I will not know until I actually get to my placement.

A Typical Day Volunteering