In the fall of 2008, a VRE team, consisting of volunteers from New York, Ho Chi Minh City and Danang trekked into the Mekong Delta. Our goal: to provide medical checkups and services to rural children in districts where VRE built schools – regions where many live too far from a city to receive proper medical care.

Over four days, VRE’s traveling team of volunteers, doctors and nurses treated more than 1,000 students. Together, we traveled by bus, ferry, scooter, and foot. Often we traveled during early morning hours, through green fields, over murky water, into blurry red sunrises, and past waving children and smiling faces to reach the schools on the Mekong delta islands.

In Tien Gang province, we visited two VRE-built schools, where the medical professionals set up shop. With the help of about 20 volunteer doctors, dentists and nurses from nearby cities, we saw and treated 600 kids the first day. The students received medicine, vitamins, toothpaste, and school supplies, all donated through the generosity of our corporate sponsors, including Colgate-Palmolive, Unilever, AIG, Thien Long stationery company and My Hanh stationery store.

The following two days, our mission took place at schools we built in Ben Tre province, where students again received medical treatment and donated health-care products.

We embarked on these medical missions because we wanted to care for Vietnam’s children holistically. It’s not enough just to build a school – we believe that caring for our students’ physical well-being will benefit them and their education. After all, a healthy child is likely happier, and more prepared to learn.

We’d like to thank the teams of doctors and nurses, and our team of volunteers. And we’d like to thank you, our donors, for making these missions possible.