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| Teacher Tran Nguyen Hai is guiding a trainee to sew |
(VOVworld) - Handicapped people are extremely unfortunate as they have to endure either physical or mental abnormalities. However, many of them don’t loose faith in life because they know they can receive a lot of support, care, and love from the community. This gives them the strength to deal with their disabilities. VOV tells you about a program which provides vocational training for disabled people.
The noise of sewing machine comes from a 100-square-meter classroom that teaches sewing down an alley in Dong Da District, Hanoi. For many years, the house has become familiar with disabled people nationwide. It’s the Linh Quang Center for Humanitarian Vocational Training and Job Generation for disabled children. Tran Nguyen Hai, a former vocational trainer for a cotton and fiber company, set up the center just after the American war to encourage the entire population to get together and support disabled people. Hai decided to teach sewing as, according to him, it’s a trade suitable for most disabled people in terms of physical ability. The trainees here are provided with free vocational courses and accommodation. The center has now started a sister organization to find jobs for people with disabilities so they can earn a stable income. Mr. Hai says ‘We have worked with businesses in 2 ways. Firstly, we have to ensure our trainees are up to speed and secondly, we have a market for their products. This way, our trainees can have practice daily to improve their skills while earning a little extra income. At our center, the trainees are paid for all the products they make’.
The items made by Linh Quang Vocational Training Center’s trainees are mainly school and specialized uniforms. Their product range is becoming more diverse ad is better quality, to meet the increasing demand.
Being paralyzed from birth, to move around a young girl called Ho Thi Thuong from central Nghe An province has to use crutches. But this doesn’t make Thuong loose faith in life. Despite initial difficulties when learning to operate a sewing machine, Thuong had constantly tried the hardest. After 8 months, she can now sew uniforms very easily. Thuong tells us her ambitions ‘I want a career so I can earn a living. Working makes me happy, and I feel satisfied. I feel happier now I have learnt an occupation and can find a job as my life has become more meaningful. The instructors here are very enthusiastic about training us and that makes us feel good about ourselves.’
The trainees’ day-to-day improvements and successes are a great source of encouragement for instructors at the center. Vu Thi Nga, one of the trainers, says that guiding the disabled is much more difficult as apart from their disabilities, they always have an inferiority complex. Nga says ‘I think handicapped people rally want to work and when they can do something constructive, they work very hard. Therefore, even if they earn only a very small amount of money from their own toil, this makes them very happy. I myself also feel pleased because I think I have helped them to integrate back into the community’.
For handicapped people, humanitarian vocational training centers like Linh Quang are places that give hopes to disabled people.
Le Phuong