With poverty overflowing into the streets, it’s the job of every village child to aid their families in order to bring the mere necessities, such as food and water, to the table.  Money isn’t easy to come by and sacrifices must be made. Children resort to forgoing an education in order to help their families. Instead of paying for textbooks, supplies, and for an education, these children are burdened with the responsibility of taking care of their families rather than obtaining an education. They force themselves to obtain money by accomplishing numerous odd jobs that are hard for even us to conceive:

Outside of the cities; outside of the areas patrolled and protected by law enforcement on behalf of  the safety for the foreign tourists, the roads are unbearable, houses consist of thatched or tin roofs, dirt floors, walls made of tin, wood, or straw, and with virtually no plumbing. Life in the country is difficult to comprehend, yet these villagers live these lives daily.  

One of the only ways to make money is to resort to fishing in the sea, which is extremely dangerous. Countless fishermen die from stormy weather on the sea. What makes matters worse for them is that the fishing season only lasts eight months. Within that short period of time, fishermen have to work rigorously in dangerous conditions in order to catch fish.  

Those who do have the luxury of owning a vehicle, mainly motor-bikes, make a living by giving rides to tourists in the city, while those who aren’t so fortunate are forced to commute as long as six hours to the city in order to sell fruit from the country and then go back home the same day late in the evening. Some family members barely have the time to see each other during the day, causing strain on a family’s environment. Vietnamese villagers only make a mere one dollar or even less per day, barely enough to buy enough food for one night. Having sacrificed so much, having worked so hard, they’ve received very little in compensation.

It's a saddening fact that some families have to sell their own children, far away to the city, to work for the wealthy. Even worse, some young girls (some as young as 14 years old) have to go to such lengths as to prostitute themselves for quick cash. For some families, this is their only option.

Children are unable to attend schools because their parents are unable to pay for it, so these children become illiterate and continue to work on the streets without an education. 

During our exploration of Vietnam in 2007, our family organized a distribution of rice to the poor in our mother's home village. A local nurse from the Red Cross made the arrangements with the government's permission to allow a gathering of the poor at my grandmother's home. At the arranged time, many of the poor villagers flooded through the gate of our grandmother's home. Those who could not fit inside formed a long never-ending line that snaked through the narrow streets of the village. We gave each family rice; each person was either emaciated with hunger, or debilitated in some way that a family member had to act as a human crutch. 

From that experience, we knew we had to do something, but something greater than just passing out food, which would not last them forever. We decided that in order to bring these families out of poverty, we had to start at the core, the children, the future. These children need a valuable education; otherwise they will continue as their parents have in the past and their parents' parents have, going through an unnecessary never-ending cycle of suffering. 

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The Viet-Sun Foundation's purpose is to provide these impoverished children, yet bright and determined, to earn a chance to continue their progress in learning and benefiting from an education through academic scholarships.