Vietnam

Holt Vietnam recently hosted a three-day Roots to Grow training for 20 children, ages 14-18, in Dong Nai Province. The Roots to Grow training focuses on exploring nutrition, hygiene and sanitation, and budgeting presented through fun and interactive games, activities, meal preparation and cooking.

The recent training brought a lot of fun for the children and helped them to feel confident in the kitchen. They learned about how different foods protect your body, help you grow and give you energy. Through hands-on time in the kitchen, they also learned practical skills like handling kitchen knives, keeping utensils clean and even how to cook new recipes, like omelets, focaccia bread, bulgogi and apple crisp!

Without learning these essential life skills, it can be extremely difficult for children growing up in poverty to make their way as independent adults. Through the support of sponsors and donors, children in Holt’s programs learn life skills that they need to live healthy, successful lives.

Uganda

In Uganda, maternal and child health camps were recently held at four health centers as well as Holt sponsor and donor-supported early childhood care and development centers. These donor-funded camps offer crucial medical care to children, families and caregivers living in impoverished communities.

The recent maternal and child health camps served 8,250 children and 694 adults, providing interventions such as Vitamin A supplementation, deworming and health education through Holt’s Child Nutrition Program. Children and families also received treatment for prevalent conditions including malaria, chronic coughs, influenza and skin infections. Children with more complex health issues were referred to health specialists.

Thanks to the support of sponsors and donors, families receive one-on-one support and benefit from community events— like camps — that provide training to help them nurture their child’s growth and development. When children are healthier, they are more likely to meet developmental milestones, perform better in school and their families miss less work — enabling them to earn more income for their household!

China

In China, Holt’s family strengthening programs focus on education to lift children and families out of poverty. Child sponsors and donors provide the critical support needed to help children attend school for as long as possible — creating generational change for thousands of families.

During August, ten students from the Shangyi Family Strengthening (FS) program attended a five-day summer camp held by the Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics in Jiangxi Province. Through the generosity of Holt donors, these students attended the summer camp free of cost.

The field trip included hands-on aeronautic and astronautic experiences, inspiring the students to develop their professional skills and explore possible career paths. For children in Holt programs, experiences like these help broaden their horizons beyond the limited career opportunities they witnessed growing up in impoverished communities.

Cambodia

According to Holt-supported students in Cambodia, donors and sponsors are making a big difference.

Recently, students were given an assessment through the Educational Support Program (ESP) in Phnom Penh. All students reported that Holt Cambodia’s ESP has helped them remain in school, with 86.96% strongly agreeing and 13.04% agreeing. Furthermore, almost all children (91.3%) who participated in the assessment strongly agreed and 8.7% agreed that ESP support has motivated them to pursue higher education.

In late July, 83 children in the ESP completed their Grade 9 National Diploma Exams and 71 successfully passed to Grade 10. Without support from Holt sponsors and donors, many of these children would have dropped out as early as in primary school. For children growing up in poverty around the world, education is the key to a brighter future.

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The post Notes from the Field: September 2025 appeared first on Holt International.

A 4-year-old stands on a busy sidewalk in Vietnam. She sees a group of strangers and walks up to them. Wordlessly, she holds up some pieces of paper and goes around to them one by one. They’re careful not to make eye contact with her. They shoo her away. She goes back to the street where her mom is waiting, and they keep walking, looking for more people to approach.

This was Tú’s life from its earliest stages. At just 4 years old, she began selling lottery tickets alongside her mom. Selling lottery tickets earns very little income, and the tickets hold very little value for the people who buy them. As a result, selling lottery tickets is akin to panhandling. People buy them out of compassion for the person selling them.

And out of desperation, parents often recruit their young children to sell them — hoping to invoke more pity, compassion and sales.

No one chooses this life. Tú’s mom sells lottery tickets because she has few other options. Her husband is no longer in the picture. She lives with her two children and four other family members in a charity house built by the government. Their entire household income is $473 USD a month, which includes a salary Tú’s uncle earns from his construction job — and the $4 a day that Tú’s mom earns from selling lottery tickets and also shelling cashews. As she grew, Tú helped support her family — also contributing ticket earnings of about $4 per day. But the family’s income barely covered the needs of seven people.

Tú is 16 now, and on a rainy day in December our Holt team walks down the trail leading to her house. Their home is surrounded by ponds used for raising and harvesting shrimp and fish. A narrow stretch of grass between the pond and a concrete wall leads to their tall brick home. Everyone is soaked by the time we reach it.

Tú comes to greet us. She’s bubbly and welcoming — her cute bangs framing a face with bright eyes and a warm smile. She’s excited to tell us about herself and how Holt donors have been helping her.

Dropped Out of School

A few years ago, when she was just 12 years old, Tú decided to drop out of school.  

“I went to school, but I don’t achieve good grades, I didn’t achieve a good outcome,” says Tú, “that’s why I decided to not continue school.”

This is a common occurrence for children living in poverty who aren’t doing well in school, and who don’t have the support they need to continue. If a child is part of a wealthier family, their family may pay for additional tutoring — or even go to a private school where they’ll receive more support in their education. But this is not an option for children from poor households. Many children simply drop out and start working to support their families.

This was Tú’s reality.

Tú decided to continue selling lottery tickets with her mom. But she soon found that an already difficult sell was only becoming harder.

“I was happy because I could accompany my mom,” Tú says about selling lottery tickets. “But I was not happy because, you know, the sell is very slow.”

Over the past several years, the Vietnamese government has discouraged the buying and selling of lottery tickets — especially with children. While not a viable option for people to rise out of poverty, when children engage in the practice, it’s also essentially child labor. Suddenly, Tú and her mom weren’t selling as much. Trying to abide by the government’s new laws, people weren’t buying lottery tickets anymore.  

As we speak with Tú in the back, open-air room of her house, the rain begins to pound even harder — making loud thumping noises on the tin roof. While we’re talking, her brother comes home from school. Although he’s 14 now, he’s small and appears to be about 8 or 9 years old. This is due to severe malnutrition. When a child doesn’t have enough food to eat, they’re often stunted in their growth. In impoverished communities across Vietnam, many children have little more than rice to eat. They rarely get enough protein and other vital nutrients. And they quite often go without meals. Both Tú and her brother have likely skipped many meals through their childhood. Their mom is tiny, too. Less than 5 feet tall and extremely slight. This is what poverty looks like.

And poverty, it seemed, is what Tú was destined for.

Holt Vocational Training in Vietnam

Tú had a sixth-grade education. And now her plan for making money wasn’t going to work, either. But Tú was smart and determined — and she kept her eye out for any opportunity to escape her situation.

“When I was selling the tickets, I found I could not earn much income,” Tú says. “But I saw people in town who did nails and hair in a salon.”

This caught her attention. What if she could do this too? It would certainly be a more stable and higher-paying option than lottery tickets. But this would require training, which required money — money her family didn’t have.

Thankfully, around the world, Holt provides just this kind of support for young adults and parents struggling to support their children. In Vietnam, Holt’s economic empowerment program helps parents and youth just Tú.

Soon, Holt donors stepped in and began making Tú’s dreams a reality.

The local government had identified Tú’s family as needing help meeting their basic needs. As in many of the countries where Holt works, the government of Vietnam has a strong relationship with Holt — and often works in partnership with our local team to serve children and families in need. The government reached out to Holt and shortly afterward, a Holt social worker, Ms. Phum, came to Tú’s house. She sat down with Tú and began talking about options for her future. Since she wasn’t going to school anymore, she’d have to plan for her future – plan for a life where she could rise above poverty.

Tú shared about the hair and nail salons she’d pass in town, and how she dreamed of working in one someday.

“I like it. I love it,” Tú says. “So I decided to do it.”

Ms. Phum enrolled Tú in Holt’s donor-funded vocational training program. Through this program, youth like Tú receive job skills training to help them find a job and earn a sustainable  income. Some choose to open a food cart. Others raise animals or learn administrative skills. With the generous support of donors, Holt helps provide the startup costs for a business or, as in Tú’s case, the tools and training required to learn the vocation.

Holt helped connect Tú with a woman in town who owns a salon. Every day, Tú rides her bike 15 minutes into town to observe, learn and progress in her skills. After just six months, she has already mastered the basic skills of manicure and pedicure, simple haircuts, hair washing and more — and will soon end her apprenticeship and begin working as a professional.

A Beautiful Future for Tú

During our visit, we leave Tú’s house and travel to the salon to see her in action.

The salon is a small shop on a busy road that is good for business. A ramp leads up to the glass-fronted room, and inside it feels clean and well set up. Several salon chairs and tables for doing nails fill the small room.

Tú’s instructor owns her own salon and is successfully running her business. She has long, auburn-dyed hair that stretches long down her back. Her mannerisms are soft and patient. She is training several other girls in addition to Tú. She sits down and allows Tú to paint her nails, serving as the model for her pupil to demonstrate her skills.

Tu smooths the pink polish over her trainer’s fingernail, hunched over her hand in concentration. She quickly and fluidly performs the motion, and the result is perfectly painted nails.

Tú is so proud of herself. She is also very thankful to everyone who helped her achieve her goal — especially the donors who funded her training.

“I would say thank you very much for your support,” she says, when asked what she’d like to say to them.

By the end of this year, her training should be complete. She will need additional support to start her business — and hopes that Holt donors can help cover these costs as well.

“After my graduation from the vocational training, I want more tools that can help me to open a small shop,” Tú says. “But I’m thinking about how I can get the money to purchase those things.”

As we finish up our time with Tú at the salon, an elderly woman shuffles up to the front of the salon. She’s selling lottery tickets. She wears a pointed hat, covered by a yellow poncho over her clothes. She lingers, asking again and again if anyone from our group wants to purchase one. Her eyes are sad. After a short, polite “no thank you,” no one engages with her. She shuffles away. 

The timing is almost poetic — as if this elderly woman symbolizes the difficult future that is no longer Tú’s. Instead of becoming like this woman, and her mom, Tú has another option. She’ll have the skills and opportunity to make her own way in the world and overcome poverty. As she gives her clients beautiful hair and nails, what’s most beautiful is the difference she’ll be making for her own life.

Lift a Mom Out of Poverty

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The post A Beautiful Future appeared first on Holt International.

Growing up in Vietnam, Thoa rose every morning at 4 a.m. to open her family’s noodle shop. Still dark outside, she would ride her bicycle to the market to buy vegetables and then work until it was time to go to school.

Even on cold, rainy mornings, she woke up before dawn — and summoned her two younger siblings from where they slept to help prepare the shop for breakfast. They were especially sleepy on cold winter mornings.

“The whole time growing up, I did not understand why I could not sleep every night,” shares Thoa, now a petite mother of two in her 50s with neat shoulder-length hair and a warm and gentle but hardworking nature.

Thoa’s sister later told her that they couldn’t sleep because they were cold — they couldn’t afford warm blankets.

Once Thoa graduated college and began to earn money, she bought high-quality blankets imported from Japan for her mom and siblings.  “The first thing I did when I made money was to buy good blankets for everyone,” she says.

Thoa has lived in the U.S. with her family since 2008 — and now serves as Holt’s senior advisor for international programs — but her childhood in post-war Vietnam is never far from her mind. She was one of seven children — nine including two siblings who both died of malaria within five days of each other.

Her family lived a relatively comfortable life near Danang, in central Vietnam. But when her father died suddenly of a stroke, her mother struggled to run his business and care for her children on her own.

Thoa was 7. Her mother was pregnant with her youngest sister at the time.

Slowly, they used up all the resources her father had left them, and Thoa watched as her family’s possessions began to disappear from their home. The black and white TV. The nice speakers from Japan. The refrigerator.

To provide for her seven children, her mom was forced to sell their belongings.

But Thoa’s mom was smart, resourceful and determined.  She decided to open a shop selling homemade breakfast noodles — a business that she knew how to run, and that she could manage while caring for Thoa and her siblings.  But with no savings and no collateral, she was forced to take out a loan at 20% interest per month — or, as Thoa calls it, a “shark loan.”

Loan sharks prey on people living in poverty, offering money they desperately need to start a business or just to buy food for their family — and then harass them for payment, aggressively demanding they give up the daily wages that are often all they have to live on. 

“It gets people into deep poverty, and they cannot really get out,” Thoa says. “They tear families apart … I think that’s when I started to have the realization of what poverty really means.”

Looking back, more than 40 years later, Thoa gets emotional thinking of that time in her life — and of what her mom had to go through to provide for her and her siblings. 

“It’s hard, as children growing up and seeing… loan sharks getting into your home every day and then yelling and screaming at your mother, demanding payment,” she says, trailing off as tears well up in her eyes. “That’s why I really believe in what Holt is doing — because it does help a lot of people.”

But it’s not just what Holt is doing. It’s what Holt sponsors and donors are doing with their heartfelt gifts to help families earn income — and overcome poverty — in countries around the world.

Donor-Funded Microloans: A Viable Path From Poverty

In the countries where Holt works — from Ethiopia and Uganda to Cambodia, India and Vietnam — many parents feel helpless to support their children when jobs are scarce and stable work requires specialized skills or higher education that’s often inaccessible to families living in poverty.

Households headed by single parents — especially single mothers — are often the most vulnerable.

In some countries, such as Korea and the Philippines, Holt sponsors and donors help provide job skills training to single mothers facing stigma and discrimination. In most cases, Holt empowers women like Thoa’s mom — women who suddenly find themselves the sole providers for their children after their husband dies or leaves the family.

Sometimes it’s the gift of a sewing machine from Holt’s Gifts of Hope catalog that comes with small business training so a mother learns how to sew and sell clothing for profit. It may be gardening tools so a family can grow vegetables to eat, selling the surplus in a nearby marketplace. Or the gift of a goat, chickens or a cow — providing abundant milk and eggs for a family.

But quite often, it’s a small business microgrant or zero-interest loan that empowers a mother to start her own unique business — one that meets a need in her community and that provides enough stable and reliable income for her to provide for herself and her children.

The predatory lending practices to which Thoa’s mom fell prey are now banned in the U.S., but they are still rampant in developing countries around the world.

Had her mom had access to a zero-interest microloan to start her noodle shop, Thoa says she never would have endured abuse and harassment from loan sharks. Like the women in Holt microloan programs today, she would have saved all the money she earned to support her children — instead of falling deeper into debt.

“There was nothing like that — there was no Holt, for example, offering microloans at that time,” Thoa says.

Holt’s first income-generating program actually began in Vietnam, just before the end of the war in 1975. Like today, Holt supported care centers for children who had been orphaned or whose families couldn’t care for them. But our team in country soon recognized that in many cases, struggling families could in fact care for their children — given the support and resources they needed.

“They were seeing a lot of birth parents coming in saying they wanted to relinquish their child,” explains John Williams, who helped develop Holt’s first income-generating program in Vietnam and later served as Holt president and CEO. “If given an alternative to consider keeping their family together, that’s what they were looking for. They just were under so much stress — their child was suffering from malnutrition, health issues, etc.”

But when Holt offered help to support their child and keep their family together, they no longer wanted to relinquish their children. Within a few months, Holt’s first income-generating program was thriving.

“It was much like many of [Holt’s] family strengthening programs today,” John says. “The role of social workers and case workers was to determine what the interests, abilities and skills of the family were. … It was all about finding out what the interests of the community or village were and helping them develop that interest into an income-generating program that created independence, not dependency.”

Like today, families started small businesses like sewing or tailoring, or raised animals like ducks or chickens to provide sustainable food and income. The goal was to help each family get on their feet and provide for their children, keeping the family together.

“It was the first time that Holt began to broaden its services to children with a list of priorities — preserve the birth family, domestic adoption, international adoption …with no one being better than the other,” John says, describing the model of service that Holt has long ascribed to, and later advocated for when we sent delegates to help draft the Hague Convention on the Rights of the Child. “It’s based on the best interest of the child.”

But as the war ended, Holt left the country — and didn’t return until they could safely reestablish programs and fully serve children and families again, in 1989.

Thoa didn’t start working for Holt Vietnam until nine years later, in 1998. She later traveled to the U.S. on a Fulbright scholarship to earn a master’s degree in social work, and then began working with children and families living in other countries where Holt works — particularly in South and Southeast Asia. 

What she saw when she first traveled to these regions reminded her of what she’d seen growing up in Vietnam after the war — extreme poverty, and predators looking to exploit people in desperate situations.

“When I travel to Cambodia, India, and I see signs saying, ‘Hey, if you need loans, quick loans, call this number’ … that’s exactly how the poor people get into the trap … That’s why I really love the models of grants or microloans, or the self-help groups that we have in Cambodia,” Thoa says, referring to a model Holt developed in Cambodia where families collectively save their money and then provide low-interest loans to group members so they can start or grow small businesses.

After developing microloan programs in Cambodia and Vietnam, Thoa encouraged Holt’s partners in India to replicate the model.

“I said, ‘We don’t have the income-generating program in this country, but I see you have a lot of advertising for loans for poor people … and let me share with you what happens when these poor people keep tapping into that money,’” Thoa says she shared with Hepzibah Sharmila, who leads our partner organization, VCT, in Bangalore. Thoa traveled with Sharmila to Vietnam and other countries to show her how Holt’s income-generating model works — and to introduce her to families that had successfully graduated from the program.

“When we give them $200, $300, then that helps the mother start a small business and achieve financial independence. And from there, they can provide for the basic needs of their children,” Thoa says. “But if they don’t have these opportunities, they would go to the loan sharks. And they could never get out. Their children could never get out, and they could never escape poverty.”

Driven to Live a Different Life

Deep in debt to loan sharks, with seven children to support, Thoa’s mom continued to struggle well into Thoa’s teen years. She was so exhausted that she often fell asleep on the floor of their home.

“It was so tiring, you know, to raise seven different children all by yourself … All the children were so small and young and everybody needed education. Everybody needed food,” Thoa says.

But like so many hardworking mothers and fathers and grandparents in Holt programs today, Thoa’s mom could still hardly afford to feed her children.   

One time, when Thoa was sick, her mom was able to purchase a small portion of meat that she guarded from her other children — giving it to Thoa so that she could regain her strength.

“My mom pointed to it and said, ‘Hey, this is just for you because you’re sick’ and nobody should touch that because I needed nutrition … Like a small portion of meat. And I was the only one who could have that meat,” Thoa says.

Thoa’s older siblings gave up on the dream of further education. But from a young age, Thoa knew that completing her education was more than just a dream. It was her way out.

When Thoa’s mom opened the noodle shop, Thoa was by her mom’s side — opening and closing and running the business every day.

“I worked very hard to help her, just because I love her so much and I understood, you know, how it was,” she says.

But every night, when she finally finished food and business prep around 9-10 p.m., Thoa shifted her focus — studying until midnight or the early hours of the morning.  “I really had this drive … I had to get out … I just could not foresee the rest of my life being like this,” she says. “So I studied very hard.”

When Thoa passed the university entrance exams, news spread quickly.

“The neighbors were so proud because it was very rare to see a kid [from our community] pass the university exam,” Thoa says. “We were so poor.”

No one felt more pride than Thoa’s mom. “I was excited. She was so proud,” Thoa says.

But Thoa also knew that her mom couldn’t afford the tuition. “I said, ‘Hey, you know, you already have so many burdens. I don’t want another burden on you. I will not go to university,” she told her, promising instead to find a job to help support her family.  

But then her mom said something that surprised her.

“She said that all her life she did not have a chance for education and that’s why her life is hard,” Thoa says of her mother, who never finished elementary school. “She believed education could give me a different life.” As Thoa was the first child in the family to pass the university entrance exam, her mom was determined to give her that opportunity.

 “Whatever I have to do, I will send you to university,” she told Thoa.

So she raised chickens. She ran the noodle shop. She sold some more of her belongings. And she asked her extended family for help. Some contributed small amounts as gifts. Others loaned her the money. Eventually, she cobbled together the tuition for Thoa’s first semester.

Like always, Thoa worked incredibly hard in school and was always the top one or two in her class. She earned scholarships from her grades. A good singer, she performed on stage for the university to get some additional scholarships.  And she worked any job she could find to pay for her degree and support her family. She promoted shampoos for Proctor & Gamble. She provided English tutoring. And she continued helping her mom in the noodle shop. Some of her professors learned about her situation and they offered her an opportunity to teach evening classes as well as a part-time job at the university. 

“Basically, what I did was I did everything on Earth,” she says.

But she saved everything she earned to support her education, and to support her mother and her family.

Later, once she graduated, she helped her mom get out of debt, and buy back all the appliances and furniture she had sold to support her and her siblings. She even helped her mom pay for her two younger siblings go to university, too. “Both are quite successful now in their lives,” Thoa says of her younger siblings. One went into economics, the other studied English.

Thoa says the mindset of helping your family and community is deeply rooted in her culture, as it is in many of the cultures and communities where Holt works around the world. “We don’t want to leave anyone behind,” Thoa says — offering Holt’s university program in Cambodia as an example. Through this program, donors provide full scholarships for high-performing students from impoverished backgrounds to attend university. 

Through our partner KBF in the Philippines, Holt also empowers youth aging out of orphanages to gain independent living skills and go to college. After they complete their degrees and begin earning money, they often go back and help their siblings. Many even return to their communities to volunteer or even work as social workers or teachers.

“Many graduates become self-reliant and just want to give back what they have received through the program by mentoring, sponsoring or working in NGOs,” Thoa explains.

It’s the same motivation that drew Thoa to a humanitarian career devoted to helping children and families escape a life of poverty and desperation.

“I understand their struggles,” she says. “I understand what they’re going through … I just want every one of them to get out and have a better life.”

Looking back on her own life story — and on the many lives transformed through Holt programs around the world — Thoa says she profoundly believes in two of Holt’s donor-funded programs in particular to help children and families lift themselves a life of poverty: educational sponsorship, and programs that empower families to generate income.  

“To see these women who started to make money after they set up their shops, and then say, ‘Hey, I make good money’ … That’s how far small amounts of money can go when it goes to the right people in the right way at the right time. It changes people’s lives in a way that we cannot even imagine,” she says. “And we know they can now provide for their children’s medical, nutritional and educational needs.”

Thoa is especially thankful for the small donations she received from family members so that she could go to college — small donations that she compares to the microgrants Holt donors provide families in need today.

“[If not for those donations], I probably would have ended up quitting and become one of the sellers in the street like everybody else,” she says.

It All Traces Back to Her

Thoa’s mother passed away several years ago. But long before she passed, Thoa wrote her a letter. She had just left Vietnam and she wrote from the airplane, en route to her new life working for Holt in the U.S.

“’I just want you to know that without you and the sacrifice back in the day, there’s no way I could be where I am today,’” Thoa says she wrote. “I really wanted her to know that I knew it was a tremendous amount of sacrifice and undertaking and I wanted her to know that I was very grateful.”

Years later, at her daughter’s college graduation, Thoa again thought of her mother and the sacrifice she made. “I thought, ‘This is so profound. … At one point, I wanted to give up on my education because of thinking there was not enough money … And now, another generation of women — my daughter — can finish their college education. And it all traces back to her.”

Still today, Thoa always thinks of her mom whenever she visits families who have benefited from Holt’s income-generating programs — especially the single and widowed mothers who are caring for children on their own. 

“We visited this woman who was 76 years old, a grandma who was part of the income-generating program … I looked at her,” Thoa shares, “and I felt like, that’s my mother. And all these grandmothers and these mothers around the world who are struggling every day, but who are trying their best — every day — to provide for the basic needs of their children. They all hope and work hard for a better life for their children.”

Help a Mom in Cambodia Build a Brighter Future

With programs at risk, your gift of chickens, a garden or a sewing machine could be the only opportunity a mom has to lift her family out of poverty.

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The post Why I Believe in Holt appeared first on Holt International.

Fourteen-year-old Thuy has been raised by her grandparents in Vietnam since she was a baby. Her grandfather works as a rice harvester — a job often affected by unpredictable factors like the weather. Thuy’s grandmother stays home to manage the household. Because of the family’s unstable income, sending Thuy to school wasn’t an option…

But then, thanks to you, things turned around. Because of sponsors and donors like you who have a heart for education, Thuy is now able to attend school! Her favorite subject is literature, though she enjoys all the subjects. She says your generosity inspires her to study hard — as her way of saying thank you.

 “Words cannot truly express how much this educational support means to me,” Thuy shares. “This support is not merely financial — it serves as a vital source of motivation that empowers me to overcome my difficult circumstances.”

Thanks to generous sponsors and donors like you, Thuy has everything she needs to succeed.

Her grandmother says, “The financial assistance arrived just in time for the start of the new school year, allowing us to pay [Thuy]’s school fees and purchase textbooks, notebooks, school uniforms, sandals and other essential supplies. She was overjoyed when she saw these items laid out on the table. You cannot imagine how much this support means to us.”

Send a Child to School

Every child deserves a chance to learn — help children in poverty get an education.

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When Liên was a little girl, her mother would carry her from street to street, asking passersby for coins and food scraps.

At night, Liên shivered — sleeping with only a thin piece of cloth to keep warm…

Her mother, who had intellectual disabilities, loved Liên deeply and did everything she could to care for her. But her own challenges made it difficult to meet Liên’s complex needs. Living on the streets of a coastal city in Vietnam, sometimes selling lottery tickets or trinkets, she wasn’t earning enough income to meet even basic needs — let alone specialized care for her daughter.

Liên could walk and manage basic hygiene, but she struggled to communicate and learn like other children her age. Her mother felt overwhelmed by her limitations and unsure how to provide the care her daughter needed.

Recognizing the difficulty of the situation, compassionate neighbors suggested that Liên might receive the help she needed at a children’s center. While it meant that she would no longer live with her mother, moving Liên away from the harsh realities of street life gave her the possibility of a safer, more hopeful future.

A New Chapter

When she arrived at the children’s center, Liên was welcomed with open arms by a team of dedicated caregivers.

With expertise in nutrition and health, special needs and child development, Liên’s caregivers could provide the care and support she needed to grow and develop. They identified her unique challenges and began creating a tailored care plan that focused on her health and building basic life skills.

One of the first steps of Liên’s new journey was supporting her physical health. Regular health screenings became part of her routine. The center’s medical staff conducted nutritional assessments to ensure she was receiving the necessary vitamins to support her growth and overall well-being. These assessments are crucial for early intervention — addressing health conditions such as anemia and other deficiencies.

Through the center’s partnership with Holt Vietnam, caregivers are trained in feeding techniques, monitoring health benchmarks and creating daily routines and activities for children with disabilities. Because of donor support for the Molly Holt Fund, these trainings are made possible, and children receive the specialized, nurturing care they need to thrive.

Safe and Supported

After living on the streets, Liên’s adjustment to life at the children’s center took time. In the early days, she was content to be alone, sitting in the corner and taking little interest in the activities around her. She seemed focused on her interior world, occasionally watching other children play.

Liên’s caregivers were patient, knowing that she needed time to feel safe, secure and comfortable in her new environment.

Slowly, with gentle encouragement and reassurance, she began to show signs of progress. Liên practiced feeding herself — first with finger foods, then with utensils. She struggled, often spilling food, but her caregivers knew that Liên needed to learn at her own pace.

Over time, she became more adept at holding a spoon and fork. Not only could she start eating without assistance, but she also began to grow in confidence.

Liên was also shown how to dress herself. And with time, she learned how to dress independently. She learned how to zip her jacket and tie her shoelaces — significant achievements for children with special needs.

Growing in Confidence

Liên’s progress with self-care was transformational, but she often distanced herself from the other children. She would sit quietly during group activities, occasionally glancing at her peers but not engaging with them.

Eager to help Liên connect with others her age, her caregivers remained optimistic and patient. They continued to involve her in simple group activities, such as drawing, coloring and singing.

Slowly, Liên began to engage with other children. As she began to feel more comfortable, she grew in her social confidence each day. Soon she started to join in activities without hesitation and even began to initiate simple conversations with her peers.

But Liên’s ability to communicate and express her emotions was limited. Her caregivers encouraged her to express herself in different ways — through art, music and movement.

Ms. Thuy, one of Liên’s primary caregivers, says she is hopeful for Liên’s future.

“[Liên] is a fighter,” Ms. Thuy says. “Every step forward is hard-won, but she never gives up. I see so much potential in her and we are committed to helping her discover it.”

Helping Her Shine

Today, Liên is 11 years old, and she continues to grow each day.

The caregivers at the children’s center remain her biggest supporters, cheering her on with each victory.

“She has shown us all what true resilience looks like,” Ms. Thuy says. “Every child deserves a chance to shine and [Liên] is shining in her way. We are honored to be part of her story.”

Every child’s path is different, and Liên’s path is uniquely hers — and it’s one paved with hope because of your help.

Making a Difference

It is through the continuous support of sponsors and donors like you that Liên is receiving the specialized care she needs to thrive.

But while she continues to receive support and make progress, many children like Liên are still waiting — left without the opportunities and care they deserve. Her story is not an isolated one — it reflects a broader challenge faced by children with disabilities in the places where Holt works.

Private special needs programs, when available, are financially out of reach for orphaned and vulnerable children, whether they live in an orphanage or with their families struggling in poverty.

You can help children with medical and special needs who are left with no other options. Donate today to help provide care, healing and hope for a brighter future.

Your gift will help provide medical treatments, surgeries, specialized feeding assistance, therapies, adaptive equipment like wheelchairs, special education and so much more.

Every child deserves compassionate care that reminds them they are deeply loved and valued. Together, we can bring lasting change for children like Liên and help them shine.

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Your gift helps a child with special needs receive the surgery, medicines, and specialized care they need!

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The post Helping Liên Shine appeared first on Holt International.

Something was different about Bao. “Wrong” – the neighbors told his parents. At 3 years old, he didn’t talk, he would throw objects across the house, bang his head against the wall, and wasn’t even close to being potty trained.

“Every child is different,” his mom, Mai, reasoned. “Some develop quickly, and others slowly.” Just because Bao was different than his older sister didn’t necessarily mean something was wrong. But then her husband, Tuan, began to wonder if their son was different, too…

Each night, Tuan read to Bao. But Bao still didn’t respond and learn the way Tuan expected. Tuan wondered if Bao had autism — and began to read and learn more about the condition — but Mai was unconvinced.

“I did not accept it,” Mai says. “I had no idea what autism was at the time.”

They took Bao to a doctor for a checkup, and he was diagnosed with developmental delays. About a year later, he received an official autism diagnosis. 

“I just felt very, very sad,” Mai says.

When he turned 5, they enrolled Bao in the mainstream kindergarten that other children in their neighborhood attended. Within a few months, they tried three different schools, and each one was the same.

At each school, Bao just sat in the corner holding his backpack and wouldn’t move. At lunchtime he wouldn’t eat.

“We decided not to send him to school anymore,” Mai says. “We were very sad and thought there was nothing we could do for him.”

Bao couldn’t go to school. At home, Mai and Tuan didn’t know how to help him either. His behavior was uncontrollable. He kept harming himself by banging his head, and sometimes he would jump and jump, seemingly unable to stop. They couldn’t really leave the house with Bao anymore.

“We decided not to send him to school anymore. We were very sad and thought there was nothing we could do for him.”

As a family, they felt hopeless. Stuck.

But thankfully, there was a place that could help Bao. A place he would be understood, and receive the exact help he needed. This place was the Kianh Foundation.

The Kianh Foundation

The Kianh Foundation is down an unassuming rural road on the outskirts of a thriving fishing village and popular tourist destination in Vietnam. Surrounded by farmland, it’s gates open to reveal a vibrant playground in the courtyard with accessibility ramps leading up to the building. As you walk down the open-air hallway that traces the building’s perimeter, children’s artwork covers the walls, and music wafts out of the large classrooms.

Inside, teachers sit on the floor, many of them working one on one with students. Children in one classroom sing and dance to a song with enthusiastic full-body motions. In another, children sit at different stations — buckling motorbike helmets, brushing and styling dolls’ hair, and tying shoes. Children range in age from early elementary schoolers to older teenagers, but they’re divided into classrooms based on ability, not age.

Children and their teachers alike are smiling and calm. And every child here has a disability. 

Disability in Hoi An

The Kianh Foundation is a school for children with disabilities located on the 17^th parallel, the dividing line of conflict between north and south Vietnam in the Vietnam-American War. What makes this even more significant and relevant is that this area was a hot spot for Agent Orange, the chemical herbicide used by the U.S. during the war, now known to cause devastating health issues and birth defects.

Disability is about 15 to 20 percent higher here than in other parts of Vietnam, yet there are still so few services for children and adults with special needs. In Vietnam, the government provides some resources to children and adults with disabilities — but they don’t stretch very far. Many parents, especially those living in impoverished communities, are not familiar with many disabilities, especially ones like autism.

The Kianh Foundation is the only school of its kind in the entire province. There’s room for 80 students at the school, but the waiting list stretches to over 200. And the reality for the children who can’t attend here is heartbreaking.

Without the specialized therapy and education to help them engage in society, a child with disabilities — who grows up to be an adult with disabilities — rarely leaves their home. Unable to control their body or emotions, there’s no way they can leave. They are often locked in a room all day in an attempt to keep them contained and safe. But it ends up causing even more damage to their development.

“This is the best choice for them.”

Some parents attempt to take their child to mainstream schools, but with class sizes of 30-50 students, the teachers simply can’t provide the individual time and attention they need. Especially if a child has never learned to communicate or control their behaviors, it’s impossible to learn.

“This is the best choice for them,” says Hoang Pham, program development director at the Kianh Foundation.

A School for Children with Disabilities

The children at Kianh have many different conditions.

Some use walkers or wheelchairs due to cerebral palsy. Many have Down syndrome, or other congenital disabilities that affect their physical or emotional development. “But the most challenging is autism,” Hoang says.

He remembers one specific child with autism who came here after a traumatic experience at a mainstream school.

“The first time he came here, we did the assessment at the gate because he didn’t want to come in,” Hoang says. Every day, this child would come to school, but no farther than the playground. His father or mother stayed at school with him each day, and a teacher worked with him on the playground.

“For about six or seven months, he was outside the classroom,” Hoang says. Finally, once the child was familiar with his teacher, he came inside. The teachers began working to help him communicate, with help from a book of pictures that taught him to associate pictures with different words. Little by little, he began to learn.

Because of support from Holt sponsors and donors, ordinary families can afford to send their children to Kianh Foundation — even those living in poverty. Fees are based on each family’s ability, with some paying just $10 a month. The staff has found that a financial investment, even if it’s small, helps families be invested and engaged.

It’s clear why so many parents want their children to come here. The school is cheerful and bright, playful feeling, but it’s also state of the art. There’s a fully equipped physical therapy room, toys and art supplies, nutritious daily meals in the cafeteria, and special events and activities that the children enjoy. The lessons are very focused on life skills, and as the children age and develop, some even begin vocational training such as sewing, housekeeping or gardening – skills that could help them earn an income in the nearby tourist area. But what makes the most difference is the nurturing care and expertise of the staff — teachers, physical and occupational therapists, and experts in the field of special education.

But for a child to have the best success, the family has to engage, too.  

Learning for the Whole Family

“Especially at the beginning, we try to integrate the family first,” Hoang says. “Step by step, we figure out the individual parent and child. We don’t focus on formal or general training for the parent, but we focus on helping them with their kid only.”

In the beginning, it’s not uncommon for the teacher to have daily check-ins with the parents after school to discuss their child’s progress and train the parents on what to work on at home.

When Bao enrolled at Kianh, so did his parents. At the time, there were no spots open at the school for him. So instead, his family joined a special community program where they could learn how to help Bao.

Funded by Holt sponsors and donors, this program taught them about their son’s condition — and what he was experiencing in his interior world.

“The first thing is the knowledge about what autism is and what the children with autism are like,” Tuan, Bao’s father, shares. “Many parents didn’t know about that before.” He remembers a specific example that helped both him and other parents of children with autism understand.

“For example, looking at a banana, we don’t know what it looks like in the eyes of a child with autism,” Tuan says. “Many people look at the banana, but it’s just a banana. But in the eyes of the children with autism, it’s different.”

For the first time, Mai and Tuan learned to understand their son.

When Bao was 5 years old, an in-person spot opened up at the Kianh Foundation. This is when everything really began to change for him.

Bao began to learn how to communicate using a booklet of pictures. The teachers also helped him learn how to use the toilet. And as Bao learned new skills, so did his parents.

“It’s very important that I learn what the teacher trains my child [to do],” his mom, Mai, says, explaining why she works closely with his teachers. “Then I can train him exactly the same as the teacher trains him.”

Finally able to communicate, Bao was so much less frustrated and began to act more calm and happy — at school, and at home.

Bao at Home

Bao’s home is a couple of streets off the main road – where it quickly turns from bustling businesses and car exhaust to expansive rice paddies and wide banana leaves that overhang the path.

It used to be very difficult for Bao to have visitors come to his home. Because of his sensory issues, any extra noise was very difficult for him to tolerate. But today, it is no problem for visitors to stop by. He has improved so much.

Bao is now 8 years old, and he’s been attending the Kianh Foundation for three years. He knows how to use the toilet, get dressed, and even follow instructions like retrieving bottles of milk from the fridge.

Their house has two rooms, and the main room in the front has a large, wood-look foam mat that the family sits on. Bao walks from the back room and comes to sit with his mom. He brings his communication book, and points to different pictures to show what he wants. He’s hungry — his mom hands him a plate of food. He flips to another page in his book and points to a picture of a salt shaker. His mom sprinkles the salt on his food. She’s beaming. His progress is incredible, and she’s so proud.

“His improvement is very meaningful to us. I want to thank the [Holt] donors and the sponsors very much, because the Kianh Foundation is the right place that we can send our son.”

One of the biggest changes they’ve made since Bao began attending Kianh is talking more with him at home. Mai says she never knew if he understood her, and had assumed it didn’t make a difference how much she spoke with him.

“I’m not sure how much he understands now,” she says. “But I know he likes it. Now I talk to him a lot.”

Like every child at the Kianh Foundation, the goal for Bao is as much independence as possible. To be able to engage with his family, with his neighbors and in his community. And his progress means life-change for the entire family.

“His improvement is very meaningful to us,” Mai says. “I want to thank the [Holt] donors and the sponsors very much, because the Kianh Foundation is the right place that we can send our son. They train my son with all the skills he needs. I just want to say thank you so much for everything that my son receives from Kianh Foundation.”

Helping More Children

Back at the Kianh Foundation, it’s an ordinary Tuesday as children learn and play in their classrooms. But from the courtyard, a child is yelling. He’s not hurt or in pain, he’s perfectly safe. He’s just new. His one-on-one teacher follows him around the playground, expertly engaging with him to calm down.

The yells don’t phase the other teachers or staff. But when he’s especially loud, a couple of them exchange a knowing glance, and a calm and knowing smile. This is how so many of the children here started out, but they know the potential for progress that each child has. There’s hope for every child, because of this special place.

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Your gift helps a child with special needs receive the surgery, medicines, and specialized care they need!

Help a child now

The post Hope for Every Child appeared first on Holt International.

Anh knows what loss feels like, even at the young age of 14. She knows what it’s like to grieve and to hope for her future. When her family’s only herd of pigs was wiped out by swine fever, the family didn’t give up hope. Instead, they bought two pigs to restart their herd.

Just a couple of months later, Anh’s father was diagnosed with cancer. Too sick to work, he left his job and began to undergo treatments. But the family didn’t give up hope. Anh’s father continued to help with daily household tasks like feeding the pigs.

But eventually, the medical costs became so great that the family had to sell the two pigs to cover the expenses. Having lost the father’s income from bricklaying and the mother’s income from raising pigs, the family’s financial situation turned bleak.

Sadly, Anh’s father passed away from cancer late last year. The family has faced much hardship. And the passing of Anh’s father has been difficult. But Anh and her mother are “sincerely thankful for your love, care and help during [this] difficult period.”

You provided sustainable income to Anh and her family to weather this tumultuous storm. The family has multiplied their herd from three to 13, and they dream of raising a big herd someday. Thanks to you, their main source of income has been restored, even in the midst of adversity.

Thank you for helping Anh and her family in their time of greatest need.

Give a Life-Changing Gift of Hope

Gifts of Hope come in all shapes and sizes and have the power to change a child and family’s life.

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The post A Herd of Hope appeared first on Holt International.

A single mother in Vietnam receives a food cart and starts her own business. Women in rural Uganda learn to break the cycle of generational poverty by joining community savings groups. A mother and her family in Mongolia are gifted a life-changing herd of livestock. Mothers and children in Ethiopia gain access to lifesaving healthcare, thanks to a mother and child hospital Holt donors helped build and continue to support in an impoverished rural region.

Around the world, Holt sponsors and donors empower mothers to provide for their children, keeping them together despite poverty, conflict, migration and the stigma of single motherhood. One of the ways your generosity supports these women is through our life-changing Gifts of Hope. Whether it’s through food carts, small business microgrants, livestock, new mother baskets, pregnancy healthcare and more, your gifts help women become stronger, healthier and more self-reliant, allowing them and their children to thrive.

As we approach Mother’s Day this year, we’d like to highlight the stories of women in four countries who have benefited from your generosity and Gifts of Hope. With your support and compassion, these mothers and their families now face a brighter future!

Healthcare for Mothers and Children in Ethiopia

In 2015, Holt donors joined local leaders and community members to build a full-service, maternal-child hospital in Shinshicho, an impoverished rural region in southern Ethiopia. At the time, only 3 percent of births among women living in rural Ethiopia were attended by a health professional, and 25,000 women in Ethiopia died annually from complications during pregnancy and childbirth. In many cases, these women could not get to a hospital in time. When Holt committed to funding most of the construction costs for the Shinshicho Mother and Child Hospital, the local community responded with an outpouring of donations — often a precious few dollars from individuals whose income was just one or two dollars a day. With backing from the government, and significant involvement from the community — both in funding and labor — the health center first opened its doors to patients in 2015.

Today, the hospital has grown both in size and in the level of services it provides. It is now known as the Shinshicho Primary Hospital, and it serves more than 250,000 patients each year with emergency, surgical and outpatient services for children and adults. Although the mother-child hospital is run by the local government, Holt continues to fund much of the staffing, equipment and materials needed to operate the maternal and child health departments, which provide labor and delivery, family planning, ob-gyn and neonatal intensive care services. Holt also supports a child stabilization center for severely malnourished children. 

When two children, Anika and Kia, were found to be acutely malnourished, they along with their mother were immediately taken to the child stabilization center at the Holt-supported mother and child hospital, where they received the critical help they needed.

“In the rehab unit, the babies received a specialized low-protein, milk-based formula diet to help them stabilize,” says Emily DeLacey, Holt’s director of nutrition and health services. “Their sick, malnourished mother was also able to receive support at the hospital and began to get healthier so that her supply of breastmilk replenished and she was able to continue feeding her girls to ensure they were getting the vital nutrition they needed.”

It wasn’t long before Anika and Kia became stable. And not long after that, they returned home. In just a few short months, their transformation was incredible. They went from being terribly sick, skinny, malnourished infants to plump and happy babies. And that’s just their physical appearance. Now that they’re getting all the nutrients they need, their brains and bodies are able to grow and catch up in development. For the mothers and children in rural Ethiopia, the gift of maternal health and childhood nutrition is a blessing on Mother’s Day — and on every day throughout the year.

Empower a mother with the gift of pregnancy health care this Mother’s Day!

A Herd of Livestock in Mongolia

Five-year-old Erdene and her family live in Mongolia’s northernmost province, where herding families continue a traditional way of life — seasonally migrating with their cattle, sheep and goats across the vast plains. Life is hard on the land, not far from Siberia, and winters are especially harsh with temperatures that can dip to -60 degrees. Although the nomadic people of this region have existed here for generations and know how to survive the extreme climate, many live in poverty and struggle to provide enough food, warm clothing and other necessities for their children.

In 2019, Holt’s team in Mongolia began working in this remote province to help care for the region’s most vulnerable children, including children with disabilities, children growing up in orphanages and children living in poverty with their families, including the children of assistant herdsmen. Erdene and her siblings were among the over 80 children who Holt donors began to support through Holt’s family strengthening program. Holt provided emergency food for Erdene and her siblings. Erdene was also enrolled in Holt’s child sponsorship program, which provided ongoing support for her and her family.

Erdene’s family felt deep gratitude for the support of Holt sponsors and donors. But as traditional nomadic people who have chosen to stay and work the land like their families have for generations, Erdene’s parents are hard-working and skilled in raising livestock. Like many assistant herdsmen, they dreamt of owning their own herd, nourishing their children from what they produced and living by their own means.

“If they could own some livestock, they would be able to get wool and cashmere during springtime,” explains our team in Mongolia. “And in summer, they would be able to get dairy products — and the children would benefit from the milk.”

In March 2021, their dreams were realized when Holt presented Erdene’s family with an incredible, donor-funded Gift of Hope — a gift that would empower Erdene’s parents to work toward stability and self-reliance, and ultimately meet all of their children’s needs. They gave the family a herd of 20 goats and 28 sheep.

Over the past four years, Erdene’s parents have nearly doubled the size of their herd and added cattle as well — bringing in considerable profits for their family. In that time, Erdene and her siblings have also grown healthier and stronger because of the nourishing milk and cheese they regularly have in their diet.

“I am very happy as a mother to see my children growing, thriving, healthy and happy … Life has changed and we are very, very happy,” Erdine’s mother shared. “I would like to say thank you. Really, really thank you.”

Empower a mother with a life-changing gift of a goat!

A Food Cart in Vietnam

Thuong is a young single mother who lives with her son in a small city in Vietnam. In April 2021, Thuong learned that she was 13 weeks pregnant. But when she called her boyfriend to share the news, he refused to take responsibility for the baby. Heartbroken, and fearing a life of poverty and social stigma as a single mother, Thuong considered relinquishing her baby for adoption after giving birth.

But then something wonderful happened! When Thuong was 7 months pregnant, a friend introduced her to a local Holt social worker, who enrolled her in a program for single pregnant women supported by Holt donors. Through the program, Thuong received food and nutritional support for the remaining months of her pregnancy, as well as baby essentials such as clothes, diapers and formula — gifts for new mothers provided through Holt’s Gifts of Hope program. The costs of her pre- and post-natal doctor exams were also covered, as were her hospital fees for the birth of her child.

In November 2021, Thuong gave birth to a healthy baby boy she named Thanh. After leaving the hospital, she and her son returned to her family home, where her parents and grandparents helped care for them.

Then, when Thanh was 7 months old, Thuong began working at her mother’s food stall. With her baby at her side, Thuong washed vegetables, grilled pork paste and meat, and helped her mother sell food. Though the women worked long hours, they earned roughly 8 U.S. dollars a day. Although this amount stretches much further in Vietnam than it does in the U.S., it was still barely enough to feed the entire family.

That’s when Thuong decided to supplement the family income by learning to make Vietnamese-style “hot dog” cakes. She took orders for the hot dogs online, then delivered them herself to customers around the city. Lacking the funds to make large quantities of food, Thuong sold about 25 hot dogs a day. After deducting her expenses, Thuong earned less than 4 U.S. dollars per day — but this amount increased her income enough to meet some additional needs, and she began to grow excited about having her own business!

And that’s when the generosity of Holt donors came through again! This time, Thuong received a food cart through Holt’s Gifts of Hope, as well as funds to purchase baking ingredients.  

These days, Thuong operates her food cart in front of her grandparents’ house. It’s open from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. Although her income is still modest, Thuong is now able to pay for her son’s preschool fees and meals at school, helping him get an early education and the nourishment he needs to thrive. Thanks to the generosity of Holt donors, Thuong has big dreams for her son — and for her own future!

Empower a mother to start her own business by providing her with a food cart!

Financial Literacy Training in Uganda

In the rural villages of Uganda where Holt sponsors and donors support children and families, women now have the opportunity to break the cycle of generational poverty. In these villages, Holt has been leading savings groups that teach parents, particularly mothers, how to earn money and save together. Through financial literacy training, these women learn as a community how to make and sell goods, grow crops, buy and raise livestock, and become businesswomen in the hopes of bettering themselves and supporting their families.

With a small initial investment from Holt donors, these groups of women pool their money together and are then able to take out loans from the group to grow their business or address an urgent need such as a home repair. They pay the money back on a schedule, thus replenishing the fund so other women can borrow as needed. Some Holt savings groups have existed for more than five years — helping the families weather the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Without the savings and loan groups, many of their businesses would not have survived financially — and they would have struggled to afford food and other basic necessities for their children.

Beyond financial stability, the savings groups have offered women a sense of pride in their accomplishments. For example, in one rural community, the members of one group named themselves the “Group of Happy Parents.” That’s because their savings have gone towards buying livestock, starting microbusinesses, and paying for their children’s school fees and uniforms. When mothers are able to care for their children, they are happy parents indeed!

Empower a mother to break the cycle of generational poverty with job skills training!

Mother’s Day Gifts That Matter

Honor a mom you love with a Gift of Hope that changes the life of a mom across the world!

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The post So Their Children Can Thrive appeared first on Holt International.

In the sweltering, suffocating heat of 1975, South Vietnam teetered on the edge of defeat.

Tensions had reached a fever pitch. The air was thick with uncertainty and fear.

Tens of thousands had already fled to Saigon, seeking refuge as North Vietnamese forces bore relentlessly through the countryside.

It was only a matter of time before the forces descended on Saigon.

Just three years before, Holt International had come to Vietnam to help unite children with families through adoption. Holt’s team on the ground had also just begun to implement Holt’s first family strengthening program — empowering families at risk of separation to continue caring for their children.

But as it became clear that Saigon would soon fall to the North, Holt’s team knew they needed to make an emergency plan for the children in their care. Even during this perilous time, foster parents and caregivers at Holt’s care center in Saigon continued to provide nurturing care for the children — some of whom carried the weight of uncertainty, aware that their futures hung in the balance, while others were too young to understand what lay ahead.

Called to Vietnam

In September of 1974, John Williams received a call out of the blue. On the other end of the line was David Kim, Holt’s deputy director at the time. John had never heard of Holt International.

“David shared with me that they were looking for someone to serve as a project manager in Vietnam,” John remembers. Holt had received a USAID grant to establish a family assistance program there, and he asked if John was interested.

John had spent two years in the Peace Corps in Thailand as a volunteer and seven working for USAID in Laos, where he met his wife. He had returned to the United States and was looking for a job.

After some time spent thinking, praying and talking with his family, John felt called to Vietnam. He signed a one-year contract … which turned into 28 years with Holt International. John eventually served as president of the organization for 10 of those.

Family Strengthening Efforts in Vietnam

“When I arrived in Saigon in early October 1974, there was no [family assistance] program. We had to design, start the program and get the word out,” John says. “Holt had primarily been an international adoption agency up to that point.”

Holt began its international adoption program in Vietnam in 1972. Over time, Holt staff recognized that many families felt they had no option but to relinquish their children — in many cases, because poverty prevented them from being able to provide the care their children needed.

“They were seeing a lot of birth parents coming in saying they wanted to relinquish their child,” John says. “If given an alternative to consider keeping their family together, that’s what they were looking for. They just were under so much stress — their child was suffering from malnutrition, health issues, etc.”

And the formation of the family assistance program changed everything.

Once families realized they had a viable option to keep their families together, they no longer wanted to relinquish their children. Within a few months, Holt’s first family assistance program was thriving, providing families with a renewed sense of hope.

“It was much like many of the family strengthening programs today,” John explains. “The role of social workers and case workers was to determine what the interests, abilities and skills of the family were. My background as a Peace Corps volunteer was as a community development worker, meaning that it was all about finding out what the interests of the community or village were and helping them develop that interest into an income-generating program that created independence, not dependency.”

Some families in the program were supported in starting small businesses, such as sewing or tailoring, which required training and equipment. Others raised animals like ducks or chickens, providing sustainable food and income. The goal was to complete each family’s case within six months, helping them get on their feet and provide for their children, keeping the family together.

“It was the first time that Holt began to broaden its services to children with a list of priorities — preserve the birth family, domestic adoption, international adoption — with no one being better than the other,” John says, describing the model of service that Holt has long ascribed to, and later advocated for when we sent delegates to help draft the Hague Convention on the Rights of the Child. “It’s based on the best interest of the child.”

Tensions Rising in Vietnam

By January 1975, Holt’s family assistance program was growing and the number of families in the program was significant. But the atmosphere in Saigon had begun to turn.

“In early 1975, we began to hear rumors and stories of unusual military activity on the part of the North Vietnamese,” John recalls. “Holt, by that time, had the adoption program and the three centers in Saigon. We also had a childcare center in Da Nang, the central part of the country, and a relationship with an orphanage in Vũng Tàu, which we supported.”

In mid-March, John and other Holt staff went up north to visit Da Nang to check on the childcare center and assess the possibility of expanding the family assistance program.

While there, they were invited to an event at the U.S. consulate compound. A consular officer told them there was no cause for concern — there was no possibility that the North Vietnamese could reach Da Nang because of the Hai Van Pass blocking their path.

Ten days later, Da Nang was overrun by the North Vietnamese.

“When we realized that Da Nang was going to be overrun, we did manage to get all of the children evacuated along with the staff and get them evacuated down to Saigon,” John says. “There were tens of thousands of people who were fleeing south, and the population of Saigon began to grow tremendously. We weren’t sure what the final outcome would be, but it didn’t look good.”

“By the end of March, the embassy staff was being reduced, and thousands of Vietnamese were attempting to flee the country by any means possible,” John says.

With their connections to the U.S. embassy, John and his co-workers tried their best to stay informed on the situation. At one point, one official told them, “You better make your plans to get out.”

“So, we did,” he says. “We began making plans to get out.”

Preparing to Flee

Arrangements were made for Holt to charter a Pan Am 747 to evacuate all the children in Holt’s care.

“When it became apparent that Saigon was not going to hold and it was going to be overrun, it was not uncommon for desperate mothers to come to us, pleading for us to take their children,” John recalls.  

As Holt staff spoke with each family, offering alternatives, the desperation of the situation was palpable. The families would do anything to save their children. But with Holt’s commitment to keeping birth families together when at all possible, the team declined to take in the children that had loving families, regardless of the unknowns that lay before them.

“We stopped accepting children a couple weeks before the final evacuation,” John says. “And we came under some criticism for that.”

As a newer member of Holt’s staff at the time, John shares that the decision not to bring more children to the U.S. spoke volumes about Holt’s integrity.

“I signed a one-year contract with Holt and if it hadn’t been for that experience, I don’t know if I would’ve stayed on with Holt or not,” John says today, looking back on his first dramatic months with Holt. “It said so much to me about Holt’s integrity and how careful it is. If a child is placed in our care and [is] going to be placed for international adoption — for all intents and purposes, that child does not have a good option to remain with a family in their birth country.”

Holt and other agencies began lobbying and requesting that visas and paperwork be expedited for children in the process of adoption. They appealed to both the U.S. and Vietnamese governments, and the request was approved — for Holt and several other agencies in Vietnam. Across all agencies, approximately 2,000 children were cleared for evacuation.

“Our flight was scheduled, the visas were approved and three or four days before we were scheduled to leave, the caseworkers began to spread out around Saigon,” John says. “We had maybe 250 children in foster homes scattered around Saigon, and so arrangements had to be made for them to be brought in time for the flight on April 5.”

The First Flight of the Vietnam Babylift

As the days grew closer to the scheduled April 5 flight, the Holt team was feeling the pressure.

“By now, the noose around Saigon was getting pretty tight,” John says. “There were occasional rockets coming into the city. The night sky was full of flares and tracers.”

A few days before April 5, the U.S. embassy notified Holt that President Ford had authorized U.S. military aircraft for the babylift. They were given the opportunity to be on the first flight, which was set to depart on April 4.

“We thought long and hard about it. In the end, we had already made arrangements for the Pan Am flight, and we felt good about those arrangements,” John says. “We were really encouraged to be a part of the April 4 flight. But the more we heard and the more we thought about it, we just didn’t feel comfortable with those arrangements. … We declined the offer.”

On April 4, at the time of the military flight, John and the Holt team were busy preparing for their own flight the following day.

“Here we are on April 4 and we’re frantic,” John says. “All of a sudden, we get word that the C5A — the first flight of Operation Babylift — had taken off and crashed. … Holt’s office was very near the airport. We could actually see the plume of smoke from our office.”

The plane had two decks — an upper and a lower, and tragically, many on the lower deck didn’t make it. A malfunction in the rear cargo door caused it to blow open, sucking the oxygen out of the cabin. Desperate to make it back to the airport, the crew turned the plane around. But it crashed just a few miles short of the runway in a rice paddy — killing 78 children and 50 adults. “A lot of people we knew were on that flight,” John says, his eyes growing misty as he sits in the Holt office, almost exactly 50 years later. “We didn’t have a lot of time to reflect on it at the time, but the thought crossed our mind, ‘Oh my gosh — by the grace of God….’”

Holt’s Flight Out of Vietnam

In the thick heat of April 5, 1975, the day arrived for Holt to evacuate children from Vietnam.

They proceeded with their arrangements to evacuate all the children in Holt’s care — a total of over 400 children. The Holt compound was full of children running around, while Holt staff frantically worked through paperwork. Over 250 of the foster children needed to be brought to Holt’s office for departure.

“The remarkable thing to me — so many remarkable things happened then — was that the foster parents were amazing,” John says. “With all that was going on, with all the stress and uncertainty that they faced, how much they cared about the children. … We didn’t lose a single child. Every foster family brought their child in that they were caring for.”

One image stands out in John’s memory — an image not too different from what our in-country staff still see today whenever a foster parent has to part with a child they have selflessly cared for while they waited to reunite with their birth family or join a family through adoption. It is always a bittersweet moment for these devoted foster parents, whether in the midst of war or on an otherwise peaceful day.

“One of the images that’s just seared into my mind,” John shares, “is as the busses were loaded, most of the busses had mesh on the windows — like screens or wire that you could get your fingers into and hold on — and as the busses were pulling away, a number of the foster mothers were clinging to the side of the bus to kind of get one last glimpse of the child they had cared for.”

With over 400 children in their care, they hurried to the airport and began loading the plane. Time was critical — the aircraft could remain on the ground for only an hour, and every minute cost thousands in insurance fees, totaling around $50,000.

Inside the 747, the upper deck had been transformed into a makeshift medical unit. Infants were carefully placed in baskets and boxes lined with blankets, ensuring their fragile safety for the journey ahead.

“We had four identification bands — two armbands, two leg bands — for every child with their information on it to make sure that if one came off, there would be redundant systems to keep track of who was on who,” John explains.

All the children were loaded, 409 in all, along with 50 adults. And with a deep breath, the plane took off.

“There were a lot of cheers and tears as we took off out of Saigon.”

Operation Babylift Complete

The flight first landed in Guam, then Hawaii and then Seattle. The arrival was late — around midnight, but many people had gathered at the airport to welcome the flight.

The door of the plane was opened, helping dissipate the pungent cabin air.

It had been a long ride.

“The children were taken out one by one — not rushed out,” John says. “Nametags were checked and accounted for — double-checked and triple-checked by the Holt staff there.”

John recalls that many of the adoptive parents were waiting to welcome their child at the airport in Seattle, while for others, the flight continued on to Chicago and then New York. With each landing, a family was united with their adopted child for the first time.

A Hasty Return to Vietnam

Rubbing their sleepless eyes, John and his colleagues that traveled with him on the flight had made it back to the United States.

But it wasn’t over.

John and two of his Holt colleagues, Bob Chamness and Glen Noteboom, knew they had to go back for the staff that had been left in Vietnam. And they made their plans quickly.

“We were now concerned about the Holt staff — the Vietnamese staff — in Vietnam,” John says. “We made arrangements three days later to return to Saigon. In those three days, watching television in the States, things had deteriorated tremendously. Things were changing very, very quickly.”

With uncertainty hanging in the air, the three set their course for Vietnam.

“I’ll never forget — when we flew into Saigon, we were still at 30,000 feet and then they made a very tight spiral landing down to the airport in Saigon,” John shares.

Their corkscrew landing on the airfield was much like the whirlwind to come. The city was in chaos. On their drive back to the office, the streets were in complete anarchy.

“There was very little law and order to be had,” he says.

After returning to the Holt office and strategizing with the staff, the team got to work compiling records to be flown out of Vietnam.

“We were also concerned about the records — knowing how important the child histories are,” John says. “That was another thing that impressed me about Holt, that they made every effort to document the background and circumstances for each child coming into care. We chartered a DC3 aircraft to take out all the boxes and boxes of childcare records and medical histories for the kids.”

An Overflowing Operation

The U.S.-sanctioned babylift flights were intended for children with approved parole visas in the process of adoption. There were originally 2,000 children approved for the airlifts, including the 409 children who were in the care of Holt International.

“I don’t know how many children were eventually flown to the U.S. and other countries under the name of Operation Babylift. I’m pretty certain that the number exceeded the [number] that it was designed for,” John says.

Between April 2 and April 29, it is estimated that over 3,000 children were evacuated, joining families in the U.S., Europe, Australia and Canada.

“I can only speak for Holt, my experience in Vietnam and the way that Holt conducted its affairs during that period of time,” John says. “The integrity of the program and the care and carefulness that Holt social workers took to document, provide care, and provide alternatives to birth parents, the efforts to research the background, to make sure that if a child was placed for international adoption, that there were few, if any, viable options for that child to remain in a safe and secure family setting in Vietnam at that time.”

Time Running Out in Vietnam

As the levels of desperation and panic rose, the plan to evacuate Holt staff became imminent.

“We developed a list of our staff that we believed would be vulnerable under a North Vietnamese regime because of their close ties — either having worked with the U.S. military before or government agencies before,” John says.

They made arrangements for those who wanted to leave — around 150 Holt staff and their immediate family members — to be evacuated on a flight leaving on April 27. On April 25 and 26, Holt began transporting staff members to the airfield.

“Someone from the embassy had left us their car which had diplomatic license plates on it — and it didn’t get stopped,” John says of the military and police personnel who were turning people away, regardless of their papers. “With that one car, we ferried people to a holding area in the air base where they were told to wait.”

After many hours, all 150 Holt staff along with their family members had made it to the airfield, along with hundreds of boxes full of childcare records for the DC3 chartered flight.

A Promise for Evacuation

It was April 27 and the DC3 was loaded with all of the child histories. There hadn’t been any fixed-wing airplanes that had taken off for several days.

“We wanted to wait till [the Vietnamese staff] had been taken out — to make sure they got out — but we were told by one of the U.S. officials, ‘You’ve got to leave now. If you don’t leave now, the likelihood of you getting out is very slim,’” John recalls.

They were promised by an official with a connection to Holt that the Vietnamese staff would make it out. Thinking that he’d have the Holt staff’s best interests in mind, they took him at his word.

“One of the hardest decisions that any of us ever had to make was telling our staff, ‘Okay, you’re here,’” he says. ‘“We’ve been promised that you’re going to be put on an evacuation flight.’”

John boarded the DC3 aircraft, intended for transporting records, along with Glen and Bob. The seats were lined with boxes full of records — child histories and medical documentation from the children that had been in their care.

Left Behind in Vietnam

When they arrived in Singapore, their first stop, they called the Holt headquarters immediately.

“We called the office in Eugene to let them know we were out,” John says. “They said that they had just received a call from a Holt staff member in Saigon. How on earth they managed to get a call through — I don’t know. But they were pleading for Holt to get them out.”

As they waited on the airfield for their flight out, the Holt staff were told, “You’ve got to get on the bus. We’re going to have to take you back to the Holt office.”

The staff pleaded, “There are North Vietnamese soldiers coming down the street. Isn’t there anything you can do to help us get out?”

John says that while some of the Holt staff in Vietnam did subsequently get out, others didn’t. “We know what happened to some and others we don’t,” he says.

Between 1975 and 1995, over three million people fled Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. More than 2.5 million refugees resettled around the world. And it is estimated that between 25,000 and 50,000 refugees perished at sea.

Reflecting on This Pivotal Moment in History

Had it not been for the evacuation of children in Holt’s care, John says their fate may have been grim. Many of them were biracial children born to Vietnamese mothers and foreign soldiers, caught in the grip of poverty with no family to care for them. Much like the children born to Korean mothers and foreign servicemen who Harry Holt felt called to help two decades before, the “Amerasian” children born during the war in Vietnam would likely face discrimination throughout their lives. 

“There’s a term that applied not just to Amerasian children but to Vietnamese street children: ‘The dust of life’ or ‘bụi đời.’ If you were a street child without means, you were not treated very well,” John reflects. “A lot had to do with social status — if [they were] on the streets or in an orphanage without the social status of being from a higher society family … I don’t even want to necessarily think about what would have happened to them. By that point, they were already separated from any known birth parent. [They] would have been in very, very, difficult circumstances.”

Their futures were forever altered by the evacuation flights that famously came to be known as Operation Babylift — bringing them across the ocean for a chance at a new life and into the arms of loving adoptive families.

“I don’t know how many people in this day and age know there was something called the ‘babylift’ in Vietnam,” John says. “But the babylift was one moment in time, and it was part of a much, much bigger story about Vietnam. And for that one moment in time, I like to think of it in terms of Holt’s role and how it conducted itself in that moment.”

More Stories to Be Told

John William’s incredible account of the events that transpired in Vietnam is just one story of so many.

The story continues with the lived experiences of adoptees today — what were their childhoods like joining adoptive families in the United States? Where are they now?

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Four-hundred-and-nine. Four-hundred-and-nine children evacuated from Holt child care centers in Vietnam in the spring of 1975. The most notable being the Pan-America “babylift” flight out of Vietnam on April 5, 1975.

The flight took off from Saigon, current-day Ho Chi Minh City, just before the city was overtaken by the northern Vietnamese army.

John Williams, who some years later served as Holt’s president, was working with Holt in Vietnam at the time of the airlift.

“All the kids had arm bands and leg bands on every limb to identify them so they wouldn’t get mixed up or lost,” John says of the children on Holt’s flight, most of whom were already matched with adoptive families in the U.S. at the time of the emergency evacuation.

“It was a long, long flight,” he recalls.

The plane flew from Saigon to Guam to Honolulu to Seattle to Chicago and finally New York. Beginning in Honolulu, and at each stop along the way, children united with adoptive parents who were extremely relieved to know their children had made it out safely. Because this wasn’t the case for everyone… An evacuation flight just days before — a flight the Holt children had nearly been on — tragically crashed several minutes after takeoff.

And just a few days later, John Williams – upon his return to Vietnam to help Holt staff evacuate – described the scene as “total anarchy in the streets — which were littered with uniforms and military equipment discarded by South Vietnamese soldiers fearing for their lives.”

This year marks 50 years since Operation Babylift, which was a defining and iconic moment in Holt’s history and legacy of caring for orphaned and vulnerable children.

But this flight was not the beginning of Holt’s work in Vietnam, and it certainly didn’t mark the end.

Holt Began Work in Vietnam

Holt first began working in Vietnam in 1972. The program primarily helped place children with adoptive families in the U.S. Because of the decades-long conflict in Vietnam, there were an estimated 900,000 homeless children in the country at the time.

Holt opened a child care center in response to this great need, providing the food and care that children needed while searching for permanent families for them through international adoption.

While some of these children had no known living parents, many of them did.

“Because of the conflict,” John says, “there were a lot of parents of children who were under great duress and thought their children would be better off in an institution because they were short of food and medical care.”

Realizing this, Holt’s team in Vietnam believed there should be alternatives or options other than international adoption for birth families to consider. Holt sought and secured a USAID grant to help reunify children from institutions with their birth families and empower families in poverty to continue caring for their children.

This is how Holt’s first family strengthening program began — in October 1974.

“The program was getting off to a very good start,” explains John, a former community development Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand and USAID agriculture and refugee resettlement officer in Laos, hired by Holt to manage the program. By January 1975, John says the number of families in the program was significant. But as it became clear mid-to-late March that Saigon would soon fall to the North, the program was cut short — and Holt’s team on the ground realized it was time to make plans to leave the country.   

International Adoption Today

After the babylift, Holt couldn’t fully serve children in Vietnam again until 1989, when the Government of Vietnam invited Holt to help support and operate orphanages. In the ensuing years, Holt continued what they started before the babylift in 1975 — developing programs throughout the country that enabled children to stay in the loving care of their birth families.

International adoption from Vietnam to the U.S. occurred mostly off and on throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, as adoption legislation and country agreements changed, and was suspended in 2008. But in 2014, Holt was specifically invited to reopen the international adoption program to begin finding families for older children and those with special needs.

Today in Vietnam, similar to in the 1970s, most of the children in orphanages have living parents or extended birth family. But the reasons they remain in orphanage care are complex, from neglect or abuse to poverty or other crises that keep their families from being able to meet their child’s basic needs.

Child welfare centers are meant to provide temporary care for children — with the first goal being to reunify each child with loving birth family. Domestic adoption is pursued for the children who can’t reunify with their birth family. And only once these options are exhausted, international adoption is seen as the best opportunity for a child to grow up in a family, and not an institution.

Huong Nguyen, Holt’s Vietnam country director, explains that the government has strict criteria for who can and can’t be enrolled into orphanage care. “First, [the government] sees if the child has any kind of relatives who can take care of them,” she says. “And even if a child does come to live at the center, they have a plan for reaching out to the family to discuss when they are able to reunite the child and the family.” 

Holt partners with both government-run and private child welfare centers across the country, providing caregiver trainings and other services to ensure the best care possible for the children who call these centers home.

While many of the children living in the centers are healthy and developmentally on-target, there is a much higher rate of children with disabilities and special needs living in institutional care than you’d find in the general population. The resources needed to care for a child with a disability are so much greater, and for a family already living in poverty, it can feel impossible. 

While orphanages in Vietnam have a high rate of children with disabilities, this reflects a higher overall rate of children born with birth defects and disabilities than other countries — particularly in certain regions of Vietnam. And the reason for this is tied to events from over 50 years ago.

While it was their grandparents and great-grandparents who lived through it, even generations later, Vietnamese children are still feeling the physical effects of the war. One region that was especially impacted is the city of Hoi An.  

Special Needs in Vietnam

Hoi An is a World Heritage Site and a beautiful coastal town that was once a significant Southeast Asian trading port in central Vietnam. It’s also the location of the Kianh Foundation – an incredible school for children with disabilities and special needs that’s supported by Holt sponsors and donors.

“The rates of disability are about 15 percent higher here,” says Hoang Pham, the program development director of the Kianh Foundation. And the likely cause is Agent Orange.

During the Vietnam War, American forces blanketed Hoi An and the surrounding region with the deadly chemical compound Agent Orange as they tried to fend off enemy troops. Thousands of innocent civilians died from exposure. And for more than two generations, women in areas once hit by Agent Orange have given birth to children with much higher-than-normal rates of physical and developmental disabilities.

But in this region with such high needs, there are few resources specifically for children with disabilities. That’s why the Kianh Foundation is so important.

The Kianh Foundation is an incredible, one-of-a-kind school for children with disabilities and special needs in Vietnam. Here, they learn life skills, have access to occupational and physical therapy — and grow and develop beyond what their families ever dreamed possible.

Every day, children with autism, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy and more come from the surrounding area to learn. But there are many more who want, and need, to come.

“We have a wait list of about 200,” Hoang says. “And the school can hold just 80.”

Through word of mouth, parents hear about the Kianh Foundation and desperately hope their child can have a spot. Attendance here is one of the greatest hopes they can find for their child to thrive, and have as independent a life as possible.

Throughout Vietnam, some families know about Holt and come to us for help. But the majority are referred to Holt by the local child welfare officials. Since the end of the conflict in Vietnam, and the reunification of the country, Vietnam operates through a strong centralized government, with local branches in each province and city. Holt works closely with the government, often filling in the gaps to provide help.

“We support the parts that the government cannot,” Huong says. This can be Holt donor-funded programs like the Kianh Foundation, as well as individual families throughout the country who are living in poverty.

Family Strengthening in Vietnam

Life in Vietnam has dramatically changed in the 50 years since the end of the Vietnam War. Economic reforms have led to greater prosperity for many people. But they have also increased disparities between rich and poor, rural and urban, and ethnic majority and minority families. Rural families often migrate to cities in search of work, putting children at risk of family separation, trafficking and exploitation.

Because of this, Holt’s family strengthening program – which began because of the needs children and families faced towards the end of the war – is active and strong today, serving more than 6,000 children and families across the country.

The Vietnamese government is quick to identify families living in poverty, however they often don’t have enough resources to provide the help children and families need to overcome it. This is where Holt Vietnam and Holt donors come in with education, single mother support and economic empowerment programs.

Helping Children Go to School

Helping children go to school is one of the foundational ways Holt donors help children in Vietnam. While some aspects of school are free to students, essentials like tutoring fees, school supplies and more can easily force a child to drop out sooner than they should. But with the right materials, and the caring oversight of a Holt social worker, thousands of children are excelling in school and on their way to graduation.

This begins at even the earliest ages, at Holt-supported daycares and preschools throughout the country. Many families living in poverty would never have the option to send their child to preschool, or even have a safe place to send their child while they go to work. And because of the nutritious meal these children receive each day at preschool, malnutrition rates have dropped significantly!

Older children receive the economic support they need to continue in their studies. And for older teenagers who may have already dropped out of school — a common occurrence for those who don’t pass the entrance exam for secondary school — Holt sponsors and donors help provide vocational training. By learning a trade such as hairdressing or running a food cart, they have the opportunity to learn a stable trade to support themselves.

And the support Holt donors provide stretches to help the entire family.

Strengthening the Entire Family

“They are the poorest of the poor,” Huong says of the families in Holt’s family strengthening program today. “They’re really in need of support, and we come at the right time, when they are at the risk of family separation or at the risk of children dropping out at school.”

Some families, out of desperation and poverty, will place their child in an institution if they aren’t able to provide enough food, medical care or other basic needs. But keeping a child in the loving care of their family is Holt’s biggest goal.

They are the poorest of the poor. They’re really in need of support, and we come at the right time, when they are at the risk of family separation or at the risk of children dropping out at school.

Huong Nguyen, Holt Vietnam’s country director

To do this, Holt’s family strengthening program comes around families living in poverty, equipping them with the tools to become self-reliant and independently provide for their children.

Once these families are identified with help from the local government, a Holt social worker will visit their home, get to know their family, understand their needs and begin to make a plan with them. For many families, this can mean helping them start small businesses or other income-generating activities like raising ducks or goats, opening a small shop, and more.

“We work with them to identify their potential and abilities, and make a business plan for them,” Huong says. “It’s very individualized. It’s a case management approach.”

In Vietnam, this often works in combination with providing education to their children. Or, if they are young, single mothers, Holt’s team in Vietnam also provides support and resources as they learn to care for their baby.

The result is that each family receives just the help they need to make their life better, overcome poverty and stay together.

While Holt’s work has grown and changed over the years, its goal and the dedication of Holt staff and donors have remained the same since John Williams first arrived in Saigon in October 1974 to help create Holt’s first family strengthening program.

Amazing Commitment in Vietnam

“The degree to which the staff, under tremendously stressful circumstances, did their job…” John trails off as he fights back tears, recalling the days leading up to the babylift in April 1975. “Their commitment was amazing.”

And this amazing commitment continues today from the Holt staff, and the Holt sponsors and donors who make Holt’s work in Vietnam possible — all for the sake of children and families in need.

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Give emergency help to a child who is hungry, sick or living in dangerous conditions. Your gift will provide the critical food, medical care, safety and more they need when they need it the most.

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The post Fifty Years After the Vietnam Babylift, Holt’s Work Continues appeared first on Holt International.