Agent Orange in Vietnam Program

A Public Private Partnership in Da Nang

 A Request for Commitment: Expanding Hope Through the Da Nang Public-Private Partnership

• Download this Request for Commitment in English or Tiếng Việt

The Aspen Institute has established the Agent Orange in Vietnam Fund to gather and deploy resources from public and private donors to address the disability issues that remain as a legacy of the war in Vietnam. We hereby request your participation in the Da Nang Public-Private Partnership, one of the Fund’s first projects. It will bring training, education and rehabilitation services to 285 Vietnamese children and young people living with disabilities in the Cam Le area of Da Nang, half of those in need there, and will serve as a model for other areas.  The Clinton Global Initiative at its September 2011 meeting recognized these plans as an official “CGI Commitment.” Donors to the Public Private Initiative in Da Nang can display the CGI Seal of Commitment to mark their contribution and showcase their leadership in addressing a humanitarian concern in Vietnam.

Background

In the 40 years since the end of the war inVietnam, the country has become a regional economic and commercial leader, and its relations with theUnited Stateshave steadily improved. But high rates of physical and mental disabilities have continued to afflict the Vietnamese, causing heartache to countless families and a major economic burden to the country. Many scientists and citizens attribute certain of these disabilities to direct and indirect exposure to herbicides theU.S.military used during the war, including Agent Orange, because some of those chemicals contained the highly toxic pollutant dioxin.

The U.S. Institute of Medicine associates dioxin with 15 serious medical conditions, including birth defects, cancers and nerve and mental disorders often seen inVietnam. Recent research has pinpointed 28 “hot spots” of dioxin still contaminating the soils around formerU.S.military posts, where herbicides leaked or spilled during storage and handling. In response, a bi-national group of scientists and prominent citizens, the U.S.-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange/ Dioxin, has created a comprehensive ten-year strategic Plan of Action that would clean up the contaminated soils and restore devastated ecosystems, and expand humanitarian services to people with disabilities and their families. This plan has been well received in both countries.

The Aspen Institute,U.S.secretariat for the Dialogue Group, is leading an effort to raise global awareness aboutVietnam’s disabled population and the Plan of Action to assist them. Its Agent Orange in Vietnam Fund supports training, education and treatment services for the disabled, without regard to cause. Charles Bailey, who led Ford Foundation grantmaking on this issue for more than ten years and now headsAspen’s program, manages the Fund. It seeks financial contributions and in-kind technical assistance fromU.S.corporations, foundations and private individuals, as well as governments, in a public-private partnership [PPP].

As former U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Michael Michalak recently put it, the U.S. Embassy is “actively exploring PPP opportunities to build Vietnam’s capacity to remediate dioxin and other environmental contamination, to reduce the number and severity of birth defects regardless of cause, and to mainstream the disabled in economic life – all of which are essential to sustaining Vietnam’s growth.”

What the Fund Can Do

The Aspen Institute’s Agent Orange in Vietnam Fund addresses the legacy of Agent Orange as a humanitarian problem that together we can do something about. Projects will pilot and expand models for comprehensive services benefiting people with disabilities and their families, without regard to cause, especially in areas near the three principal dioxin hot spots. Dr. Bailey and Vietnamese colleagues will vet project proposals and verify progress. The Aspen Institute will issue annual reports on uses of the Fund.

Da Nang:  The Hope System of Care

The U.S. Congress has already begun funding cleanup of one of the three worst hotspots, at the Da Nang airport, and greater health and rehabilitation services to some Vietnamese in need. Children of Vietnam, a non-governmental organization founded in North Carolinain 1998, has achieved great success in two Da Nangdistricts with a pilot version of its Hope System of Care for Children with Disabilities. For four years, this innovative program has woven medical, housing, educational, vocational, social integration and other supports into a coordinated and personalized fabric of services to meet the diverse and changing needs of more than 200 children with disabilities.

The Hope System features a Case Manager who works with trained paraprofessionals to evaluate each disabled child’s particular needs and family situation to recommend a comprehensive care plan. Then a team of specialists from government agencies, educational institutions and medical facilities across the relevant disciplines evaluates the child’s plan and monitors progress, while the Case Manager and paraprofessionals work with the family to carry out the plan.

The Current Opportunity: Expanding Hope

Children of Vietnam has expanded this pilot Hope System of Care approach to a third area, Cam Le district of Da Nang, which lies adjacent to the airport and its dioxin hot spot. Cam Le is home to some 475 children and young people with disabilities, ranging in age from newborns to age 25. When fully funded, this PPP will bring the Hope System of wraparound services to well over half these young people in need over the next three years, proving that the model is suitable for expansion and adoption elsewhere in Vietnam.

The Rockefeller Foundation, a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, is supporting the core of the project with a grant of $306,800.  This will cover system reform, training and equipment for the Cam Le program for the next three years, and at the same time provide services to 100 impoverished children under 16 who have single disabilities. Corporate grants of $82,000 from HSBC Bank and Hyatt Hotels are funding services to an additional 50 children and 15 youth with disabilities ages 17 through 25 during this same period. We are now seeking $200,000  to extend vocational and workplace readiness training to a further 100 young people age 17-25 in Cam Le district who have one or more disabilities.

Signing the MoU on September 27th, 2011 in Da Nang are Children of Vietnam’s Country Director, Luong Thi Huong, and Vice Chairman of the Cam Le district Peoples Committee,Tran Van Phi. In the background are Charles Bailey, Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Agent Orange in Vietnam Program, and Children of Vietnam Executive Director, Nancy Letteri

The local governing body, the Cam Le District People’s Committee, strongly supports the Hope System of Care and vigorously participates in the Public Private Partnership.  It is contributing funds to train health workers and expects to adopt proposed management reforms and to take over funding of direct services after this program ends. Success would strengthen the case for extending the Hope System to the four Da Nang districts it has not yet reached and to adjoining provinces. The project for which your support is sought in this proposal is sustainable and holds excellent prospects for being scaled up.

This program will demonstrate ways that public-private partnerships can contribute to resolving the legacy of Agent Orange in Vietnam and to strengthening U.S.-Vietnam cooperation. It can change the future for disabled young people now shackled by poverty and disability, building a model of care that is effective and efficient and that can be replicated nationwide in Vietnam. Each partner’s conscientious concern for the Vietnamese community and its meaningful contribution will be highlighted in a most positive way in Vietnam and by the international aid community. The Aspen Institute would welcome your support and collaboration.

• Read the Project Description: The Hope System of Care for Children with Disabilities

For More Information Contact: James Hoppes at the Aspen Institute Agent Orange in Vietnam Program, 477 Madison Avenue Suite 730 New York, NY 10022. james.hoppes@aspeninstitute.org, 215 887-3815.