Roadmonkey Vietnam Expedition 2010 - Bridget Skahill

Dear Friends,

This fall I will be joining the Roadmonkey "adventure philanthropy" expedition through Vietnam. We will spend nine days cycling through the highlands, and will then travel south to the Mekong Delta to work hands-on with the Catalyst Foundation and a local community to volunteer building a playground for these children.

The community that will benefit from this project is almost entirely disenfranchised from public education and welfare. To give you a stark sense of this community: Few families live in permanent homes; several of the young girls have been sexually trafficked; a majority of the adults are illiterate; many families live on the extreme edge of poverty. The kids have very little to 'play' with. The community exists around a local garbage dump. For most, the day's work is spent separating garbage, which is also where much of the food comes from. Parents and kids work to collect plastic bags, separating the garbage from them at the dump for $0.35 / bbl of plastic bags collected. School is from 7-11 or 1-4, 20km from the new dump site where most people live; kids walk, bike, or find other ways to get there. Kids spend the rest of their time either working in the dump or fishing to get food.

The partner that we are working with for this project is the Catalyst foundation, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to giving families the tools to escape poverty and to raise awareness of trafficking at the grassroots level, in order to eradicate it. A playground does not eradicate poverty, of course, but it does provide a source of athletic and social fun for this community of children. Catalyst has approved our playground-building project, with great enthusiasm! The money I raise will go toward the cost of procuring playground materials. The expedition team needs to raise $8,000 to make the playground in Vietnam a reality.

Thank you so much for your support!

Bridget