It all began in the late 80s, when I was volunteering in a Vietnamese refugee camp in the Philippines with my partner Angèle. We then met a couple who were working for Enfants & Développement (the association's former name) on a health project in the slums of Manila, and we hit it off. When, in 1993, the association decided to set up operations in Vietnam, President Danièle Cheysson selected our profile. Our status as teachers and our humanitarian experience with the Vietnamese were going to be useful in helping children in difficulty.
After a few months' analysis of needs in various regions, we launched a socio-educational development project for disadvantaged children in Nha Trang. In this coastal town in the south of the country, many children had dropped out of school and were working as fishermen or in the fields. We set up a system to strengthen primary education, with evening classes. We developed an approach based on play and discovery, but also a social component to meet the needs of families, with the introduction of micro-credit for example.
The phenomenon of street children was also growing in Nha Trang. Many very poor families living in the countryside were taking their children out of school and sending them to the city to work. Tourism was beginning to develop, construction sites were hiring, sex tourism was appearing... So we decided to launch an additional project for these children.
I loved working on this project until 1996: I learned Vietnamese, and I greatly respected the seriousness, professionalism and dedication of our local colleagues and partners. Our child-centered approach helped to change the way some teachers and educators worked, as well as our partners. The focus was no longer on just helping an individual, but on the broader social and economic issues behind his or her situation. And yet, we weren't working in an easy context, as we were dealing with an issue of morality with the phenomenon of sex tourism.
Three years later, after my return to France and my involvement with the Board of Directors, I had the opportunity to once again take up a position as Area Manager for Vietnam and Cambodia. I had the advantage of knowing the association well. My job consisted in setting up and monitoring projects, securing funding for each project and managing the operational teams. Thanks to the trust we had built up with the local Vietnamese authorities, who recognized our work, we were able to develop other activities such as a rural development program focusing on children and young people from ethnic minorities in Si Ma Cai, a district bordering China and previously closed to foreign NGOs.
In Cambodia, Enfants & Développement was already well established since its creation in the early 80s. The team was solid, local NGOs were being created with Khmer teams that had been trained. At the time, we were already working on early childhood development. We were also taking over the management of a health district in Kirivong. It was also at this time that the first family support program was launched.
I eventually supervised projects and teams in these 2 countries until 2003. Then I returned to the Board of Directors for 3 or 4 years. Hard to leave the ship!
After a career that continued as Director of a training center at a technology park in Haute-Savoie, I'm now in early retirement.
The Planète Enfants & Développement association represents more than 10 years of my life, full of wonderful encounters and memories.
