How Coup de pouce Vietnam was born ?

We started doing social actions with the French embassy in 1995, with Maryse Debar, founder of the Cercle des Femmes Francophones de Hanoi until her departure, supporting G.R.E.T.A (Patrice Lamballe) for disadvantaged women in rural areas, by purchasing buffaloes donated to disadvantaged families.

  

At the end of 1999, I proposed to a group of friends, Ms. O. Bouderont - D. Girard - A. Baillard and to the people who supported our actions that we separate from the CFFH to create Coup de Pouce Vietnam for more responsiveness on social actions, by giving more transparency to donors, by separating the accounts for fun and cultural activities from our social activities.

 

In addition, some members of the CFFH did not want to join the social, which hindered the speed of decisions to be made for our actions.

However, the CFFH returned 1/4 of their membership fee to us.

 

We toured all the embassies established in Hanoi to make ourselves known and ask them for their support; many gave it to us and helped us. We also contacted companies based in Hanoi.

 

All our actions were concrete, without cash, to avoid any corruption and the collaboration was 50% from CDP VN and 50% from the Vietnamese partner, in kind, in personnel or otherwise, in order to ensure the sustainability of the project at a minimum. over 3 years.

 

Initially, we were more focused on women and families in rural areas around Hanoi.

 

COUP DE POUCE achievements: :

 

• Microcredit for the purchase of seeds for clean vegetables.

• Help with horticulture.

• Rural libraries for agricultural training and fish farming.

• Help with the reintroduction of silkworm farming.

• Purchase of buffaloes (around 40).

• Purchase of “gilts” (little sow – when the little sow had her babies, one was reserved to be given to another family and so on…)

• Construction of water reservoirs for villages.

• Support for orphanages - Bac Ninh: bedding - clothes - creation of a refectory for children with installation of a complete kitchen with equipment and furniture for children. Dong Anh - water tanks for the orphanage.

• Creation of 2 sewing learning workshops with a state diploma - KE SO and DONG ANH.

• Creation of 5 dispensaries in collaboration with the sisters of the Congregation of Lovers of the Cross - we took charge of the creation and the equipment - the sisters assumed all operating costs and medicines. Before the opening of these dispensaries, villagers were forced to travel tens of kilometers to access free care.

• 1 warm kit with duvet at the start of each winter for single grannies.

• Toys and wheelchairs for the Friendship Village.

 

• Renovation of the blind massage center in Hanoi (still in operation). The blind people went to private homes or the patients went to the center, which ensured them a livable income.

 

When we approached Paccom and the Hanoi child welfare service, we organized help to improve families' homes as well as school sponsorships by offering to give the family:

               - “monthly package” aid corresponding to a salary that the child could bring home to his family if he worked, subject to receiving regular school report cards in return, attesting that the child was in school or in apprenticeship. Otherwise, the aid would be stopped immediately.

 

We had always refused medical aid:

 

• CDP VN not being able to control or assume the cost of medical treatment, especially in the short and long term, while certain NGOs in the field were operational and specialized in monitoring these cases.

 

• Knowing that the Vietnamese government supported free consultations and follow-up for disadvantaged families at the ex-St Paul hospital (towards the temple of literature), we took this option by analyzing our various actions because we had noticed that the medications were:

• Resold

• For the family and not for the child

• For the sole benefit of the professional etc…

 

Memories 

• Funny anecdote:

 

The purchase of around ten “gilts” to give to families was a real expedition to the depths of northern Vietnam and on impossible roads.

• Departure in 4x4 (in two cars loaned by volunteers) at 5 a.m. with a veterinarian (Vétérinaires sans frontières), a Vietnamese breeder and two CDP VN volunteers including me.

• More than 4 hours of driving and 1 hour of discussion with the local authorities, despite our authorization to access the farm.

• Choice of “gilts” in breeding with very specific criteria….

• Lunch with the local committee

• Return to Hanoi with our precious cargo

• At the time of distribution to families, 4 or 5 gilts out of the 10 take off in the middle of the rice fields and for more than an hour, we are running after our precious load to recover it.

• Return home around 10 p.m.  Exhausted but happy with the joy of the receiving families and our mission accomplished.

 

• RENOVATION of a historic site by creating a dispensary and a place of reception for grannies without families, in collaboration with the mother superior of the Congregation of Lovers of the Cross.

• The numerous discussions with our volunteer architect Normand (Canadian) who made the plans and followed the work with the sisters and with the parish priest, Father Joseph, whom we baptized the “Concrete Father”. Why this name? Because he wanted to raze everything and redo a concrete construction for this dispensary. But we did not give in!

• On the day of the inauguration, seeing the joy of these little ageless Vietnamese grannies to whom we offered a roof - care - a comfort they had never known was, I believe, my best fond memory.

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• The HIWC bazaar organization

Under the sign of the French Embassy, ​​our ambassador managed to get the HIWC to give us all of the profits from its sales.

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Coup de Pouce was also a real union, like a family, with friendship and mutual aid between all the expatriates of the time - there was no supermarket and few French products, we were obliged to take local products or to go to Bangkok to do our shopping - it was not the Vietnam of today and each action required authorization and more authorization - discussion with the neighborhood committees.

 

To this day, we have kept a lot of contact between former volunteers, despite their various destinations, and all say that they have never found this friendly understanding in other countries.  This too was a success of Coup de Pouce VN.

 

The French embassy has always supported us and Ms. Faty Degallaix (wife of the ambassador) was our Honorary President.  Over the years all the ambassadors and their wives have helped us.

 

21 years of life for CDP VN is for me a great, great success, it’s nothing but happiness.

Thank you to all the presidents who have succeeded one another for allowing the sustainability of the association.

 

The position of President is not easy to assume in order to respect the statutes and the primary objectives of the association, facing volunteers who in good faith sometimes have projects that are not compatible with the statutes.

 

The main thing is that the help provided to children and families continues.

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2021