100 Bikes for 100 Girls

Dear Friends,

Happy 2021, we are all looking forward to, and hoping for a better year this year. Thank you for your commitment and compassion for others around the world, we are especially thanking all of your continued support for our bikes for girls program in Vietnam. In 2020, collectively you helped to provide bicycles to 480 girls who live and travel to school on rural roads in Vietnam. This year it is expected to be a difficult year for girls around the world, with the pandemic expected to push 47 million more women and girls into poverty. In Vietnam, trafficking of women and girls continues to be a major problem, including the exploitation of children under the age of 16, and “adults” over the age of 16 into forced labor in the garment and other industries (U.S State Department-2020 Trafficking in Persons Report: Vietnam). Although we are a small volunteer-run non-profit, please be proud that you have helped to make a difference for girls. Not only have the bike recipients been given a way to make school more accessible to them, but through publicity locally and bringing the attention of the support for girls and their education from all of you across the world, is making a difference with the local schools and government in saying that girl’s education matters. You are making a difference.

In 2020 we began to expand our bike givings to include more rural, mountainous area schools. Our team must travel hours round-trip up into the mountains to get to some of the schools, but thanks to our donors we have been able to afford the transportation costs to carry the bikes there, approximately $100USD/trip. To give you an idea about the lives of girls in these villages, we wanted to share this one story about Thi.

Thi is 15 years old and attends middle school in the mountainous village of Khanh Son, a two hour drive from Cam Lam where our staff live. Khanh Son is one of the poorest areas in Khanh Hoa province with the majority of the people belonging to ethnic minority groups. For Thi, she must travel one hour by bicycle to get to school. She told us that she had to wake up at 5:00am and leave her home at 5:30am to make it to school by 6:30. Thi does this every day, and her teachers report that she is always on time and is a great, great student. On days when there are afternoon classes, students who live close by go home for lunch and ake the traditional mid-day rest and then return to school, but Thi packs some food and stays at the school to rest because of the distance back to her home.

For Thi going to school is something special, because her family members before her either never went to school or dropped out at an early age. Next year, she is planning to go to high school, which in Vietnam for most minority girls living in these rural villages, is a tremendous accomplishment. The high school that she will be attending is the only one in the village, and it takes an additional 15 minutes to reach. Thi was so happy to receive her new bicycle to help her make this daily journey.

Thank you for supporting the many girls like Thi.

If you have not seen our latest newsletter we are sure that you will love all of the things that were accomplished in 2020 with you as our partners. Please click here or copy the link below into your browser:

https://mailchi.mp/6cc2a26da179/rock-paper-scissors-childrens-fund-in-2020?e=c757f065e3

Sara and the Rock-Paper-Scissors Team

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Hello Friends!

So much has changed globally, and we have all had to adjust our lives immensely. We hope that you are managing OK during the pandemic.

Like in the U.S., the schools were closed in Vietnam during the spring, and we had to adjust our Bikes for Girls program. Instead of giving 20 bikes out at a time, we were able to continue to hold smaller bike givings with only 10 girls, abiding by the Vietnamese government’s Covid-19 guidelines. So far this year, we have identified t230 girls who have needed transportation to get to school. Thanks to your support, all 230 girls have received their new bicycles and helmets.

Nhi, shown in the photos with her mom, was one of our bike recipients last month. Typical of many of the girls we support, she is 11 years old and in grade 6 this year. Nhi was born into a large family of four kids- two brothers, 16 and 14 years old, and one sister who is 3 years old. Nhi’s father does odd jobs like many local men and hasn’t had a stable job or income. The family gets by, but frequently, when additional money is needed for school supplies or medicine, the family can’t afford them. Nhi’s mom stays at home to take care of the house and Nhi’s siblings, especially the young baby. As an income, her mom is raising two cows at their home.

“Nhi has always been a good student, and is very sociable,” her teachers say. Nhi told us that she loves taking physical education in school and hopes to become a teacher one day!

This summer Rock-Paper-Scissors Children’s Fund received a small grant to establish a summer tutoring program for girls as part of our Bikes for Girls program. All Vietnamese students must past grade-level entrance exams each year that are very difficult. Those students who can afford additional tutoring are often the most successful, leaving those behind who cannot afford the extra support. We have always felt that providing tutoring to girls during the summer months will help give the girls a great advantage in entering the next grade. We piloted the program over the summer, holding tutoring classes four days a week for six weeks with 27 girls. We hope to expand on this program over the next few years to add more girls.

Thank you all for reading this update and, as always, providing us with the financial support to make all of this happen!

Take care everyone,

Sara 

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