Non-governmental organizations play a crucial role in providing services such as medical care, education, infrastructure improvements and many others in places of need. Vietnam is a country making great strides in all these areas, due in part to the help of such organizations.

One such NGO is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund based in the United States. I had a chance to visit with Chuck Searcy, the Hanoi-based representative of the VVMF, about the group’s operations in Vietnam. In the United States, the VVMF is best known for building the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. It has also created a curriculum of the war for middle and high school students, with the aim of providing a balanced history. On the 25th anniversary of the end of the war, VVMF members, who include corporate executives who are veterans themselves, decided to establish a project in Vietnam that would address the legacy of unexploded ordnance left behind by the Americans.

Ministry of Labor statistics from 1975-1998 show that there have been approximately 34,000 deaths and 68,000 injuries resulting from explosives left behind. Searcy notes the numbers are probably much higher, but death certificates don’t explain how people die. Despite the unsurprising bureaucratic obstacles on the side of the Vietnamese government, the VVMF began with an ordnance removal project in Quang Tri Province, which rests on the 17th parallel (aka, the DMZ, or the fabled “McNamara Line”) that once separated North and South Vietnam.

The efforts branched out from there. Vietnamese run the projects while Searcy serves as a facilitator, i.e., he brings in technical expertise and funding from the outside, as needed.

Now the VVMF is involved in finding ways to help Vietnamese with physical disabilities generate income and create overall self-sufficiency. For example, there is a high demand for Japanese mushrooms in Quang Tri Province. Working with the local People’s Committee and Farmer’s Union, 50 families were selected for training in the farming of this crop. An initial investment of $400 in each family results in a net income of $800-$1,200 annually — no small sum in these parts.

There is hope that this will move beyond the original 50 families, and eventually become a huge cash crop through exporting, now more of a possibility because of the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement.

For now anyway, the project has created income for many who otherwise are unable to perform strenuous labor. To learn more about the VVMF, persons may visit www.vvmf.org.