Lucky boy!

On our very first visit to Vietnam back in 2006 we spent some time with the children of Friendship Home. We were introduced to the children one by one and given a brief background on each of them.

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They are a great bunch of kids, each of them with a real story to tell, but one little guy stood out – the translator told us his story;

Phuc (pronounced Foop) had a rather sad background, his mother died when he was just three years old, his father died a few years later. Phuc then went to live with his very elderly, blind grandmother and he would forage for bits of scrap iron to be sold or bartered for food and other basic supplies. He was eventually spotted by the authorities and brought to Friendship Home in 2000.

When he was eleven years old Phuc and a couple of the other boys were playing nearby when a wall totally collapsed and Phuc was pinned underneath the concrete blocks. As a result of the accident he had one leg amputated and severely injured the other. He now faced a future of both poverty and disability.

Listening to this tale we were all feeling a bit sad and sorry for him, the translator then added;

“and you know, it’s strange, because he has so much bad luck and yet his name actually means ‘lucky!'”

Jim piped in with; “well the story’s not over yet!”

Very true indeed, and it’s been great getting to know Phuc over the years. He's a terrific little guy and he really enjoys our visits, especially when we take the children for a day out. He always finishes each visit with ‘when are you coming back?’.

Now Phuc’s story continues. He left school last year which was a bit of a worry, a young man with limited education and a disability doesn’t have too many options available to him in Vietnam. When we saw him back in April he was telling us that he would really like to be a cook one day.

That was also around the time that ACCV employed Toan, a fine young man who’s overcome his own challenges and who sees his future as a social worker helping others. We decided that this was a perfect opportunity for Toans social worker skills to be put to the test, he was in charge of organizing a cooking course for Phuc.

As you can see from these photos, Toan did a great job, and it didn’t take him too long at all, a couple of weeks ago Phuc began his full time cooking course. He really loves it! This is hopefully the beginning of Phuc’s vocational education and a pathway to some decent employment opportunities for him.

It appears that his luck is now more in keeping with his name.


I’ll post regular updates on his progress.
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Kind Regards
Alison & Rose



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