The first encounter Minors’ staff had with orphaned and abandoned children in Southeast Asia was during the U.S. war at this Buddhist temple in Bien Hoa province northeast of Saigon, in 1970. Many Amerasians, or mixed raced Vietnamese-American children, were among the infants and toddlers abandoned, or left in early mornings at the temple.

Some years after the U.S. war, we were made aware of orphans still in Viet Nam or among the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons in Cambodia, who were not only abandoned, but physically handicapped as well. At this time Minors began resettlement and medical assistance for such exceptionally disadvantaged children.

Minors was formed as an organization in 1984 to support efforts to provide resettlement and related assistance to children in Ban Vinai refugee camp in northern Thailand who were orphaned or separated from their immediate families, many of whom had resettled in the U.S.

This camp was mostly populated with ethnic Hmong refugees from Laos, and several other ethnic groups, such as H’tin, Khmu, Lao and Mien. Our program assisted children at other camps as well, including Chiang Kham, Nong Khai and Panat Nikhom, and later at Wat Tham Krabok, all in Thailand.

In the 1980s and 90s Minors helped out a number of families, and in some cases children without their families, held in Thailand as Unauthorized/Undocumented Arrivals, at jails or other facilities along Thailand’s borders with Cambodia and Laos, and in Bangkok as well.

Since our earliest days as an organization in the early 1980s in the refugee camps of northern Thailand, until now in the Centers For Social Security at several provinces in northern Viet Nam, Minors has helped provide basic support for scores of elderly folks on their own,in difficult conditions.

In the mid to late 1990s Minors provided emergency disaster relief at remote villages in central and southern Viet Nam in Long An, Quang Nam, Thua Thien Hue, provinces. Those most often left with the least were older women living on their own. After a severe flood these two widows had only a few remnants of their homes, neatly stacked.

For nearly a quarter of a century, Minors has focused our efforts on increasing enrolment, years in school, and most importantly days in attendance per school year for ethnic minority girls from the most remote mountain villages, which are also the villages in Laos and Viet Nam that have the highest number of households living under the severe poverty line. Please see What We Do for our current program, and for impact and results Recognition

Hospital patients in need of life saving surgery or treatment often leave the hospital to return home and die, in great agony in most cases, as they are without means to pay for treatment. Minors assisted many patients over the years by helping to cover surgery and hospital costs, along with large hospitals in Ha Noi Viet Nam and Vientiane, Laos. These were primarily patients from rural areas and distant provinces.

Over the years it became apparent that there were other, more disadvantaged patients in provincial hospitals; even though costs for surgery and hospitalization would be covered by the hospitals or their staff, here too, many would return home without treatment, as there was no money for food. Hospital staff on limited salaries contribute to patients' food funds as well, but this runs out, and then help is requested from Minors as patients prepare to leave for home, without being discharged.

More details about this program are at Patients

Remnants from the French colonial days and later from the French last stand. Hmong primary students on their way home with sweaters we distributed at their school, in old buildings on the grounds of a long abandoned church built over a century ago in the high hills of Lao Cai, and a farmer drives by long abandoned french weaponry, still in the fields at the Dien Bien Phu battlefield, just down this road from another school where Hmong children attend as boarders.

From the far reaches of the Mekong delta to the northern highlands, and many places in between, Minors' staff and partners have faced great challenges but also experienced the great geographical diversity of Laos and Viet Nam over the past two decades. Our current project areas, listing every commune in every district of our recent travels are on view at Where We Work

When it was mandated that all communes establish kindergartens a few years ago, many remote and impoverished mountain communes in Viet Nam were unable to afford ideal structures, so our emphasis on infrastructure improvement shifted from construction of dormitoires and kitchens to replace very rough structures,(above,left) at middle and high schools, to improving conditions for kindergarteners, such as these little ones trying to get warmth from rocks outside their classroom. See Cold Kinder

The first dormitories we came across two decades ago, built by these Hmong students; the older boys slept on top of the younger boys to keep them warm on freezing nights. From this point on we focused on implementing dormitory construction at highland commune elementary, middle, and high schools with boarding students from the most remote villages in dozens of districts across several northern provinces of Laos and Viet Nam. See Constuction

A nurse at a rural health station apologizes for having no medicine in her station, which is also her home. This was some years ago; things are improving, but health care costs are still far beyond the reach of most families in these mountain villages. This situation led us to include medical kits, medicine and other basic supplies, as well as health clinic construction in rural areas in central and southern Viet Nam.

In the Mekong Delta and the Central Highlands in the early 1990s villagers living under the most severe poverty often had no experience using mosquito nets, so part of distribution involved classes set up by our local partners in the use and care of the nets; many of the recipients were unable to read or write, and signed for their nets with their fingerprints.

Orphaned students, living with relatives, are frequently at risk of having to drop from school to help earn their keep, as it is beyond the means of many rural families to support even their own children's education, let alone additional family members. Food, books, uniforms and other costs are simply too much for parents who are farmers or those trying to live off the land or forests, or for daily laborers. Photo above, an early recipient of this kind of support at her home.

We started scholarships and cow loans for such students in Viet Nam in the southern delta provinces of Tra Vinh and Long An in the mid 1990s and later implemented this program in Thua Thien Hue, before bringing this kind of support to Laos and northern Viet Nam. In northern Viet Nam we also have included children who are not orphaned, but whose families were in exceptionally difficult circumstances, and who are therefore at risk of dropping from school as well. More details of our current program are at Bees and Buffaloes

Over the years Minors has also provided support for food raising and water projects at Government Centers for Social Security, where destitute elderly, orphans and abandoned children as well as handicapped children who need assistance are residents, in the provinces of Tra Vinh, Gia Lai, Thanh Hoa, Son La, Lai Chau, Dien Bien, Lao Cai and Ha Giang, in Viet Nam, and prior to that in Laos and Cambodia. For more on these projects in their current form, please see Biogas

In south, north, and central Viet Nam, as well as in mountainous districts in Laos, we realized early on that learning materials were scarce and this was overcome when possible by sharing resources. Pens and pencils are precious, notebooks and other essentials are rarely sufficient in number. For details of our current types of pupil support, please see What We Do, Student Supplies

Warm blankets and warm clothing are the two items that more than any other type of support directly contribute to the increase in the number of days per year that children, particularly girls, from the most geographically isolated and distant mountain villages remain in school. It is simply too cold in the mountain winters to stay on at a boarding school, for younger children, as that is the only option since they have no schools in their home villages. In Laos and northern Viet Nam Minors has distributed over 100,000 such cold weather items at hundreds of remote schools and kindergartens and centers for orphans and elderly over the past two decades.

Originally we distributed the blankets shown in the photo above right, but soon found they were insufficient, and switched to the filled or quilted type blankets some years ago. No one lap top-per child programs here, we are aiming at two or three students per blanket, which adds even more warmth from student body heat.

For more photos and details about specific items please see What We Do, Clothing

Rice Scholarships were first awarded at these two schools in the early 1990's, and both schools increased dramatically the number of girls from the most distant villages who came to board at both primary, middle schools. These food supplements, rice or corn, were provided to students from families at or below subsistence level, and are only able to forage in the late winter months. These scholarships allow these children to finish out the school year.

Minors also implemented our first dormitory construction projects at these two primary, middle schools, in the provinces of Dien Bien, at that time Lai Chau (boarding students eating lunch in front of their new dorm) and Hoa Binh (boarders cooking). More details about our Rice Scholarship program and a look at the tough and risky alternatives for those students who are without food, at What We Do / Rice Scholarships

Orphans heating water for cooking with a fire fed by sticks and branches gathered from a long hike away. At this Center in Ha Giang and another in Lai Chau province, as well as several remote commune boarding schools, Minors has now implemented biogas projects to save wood by recycling waste, both from animals and orphans. The holding tank and tube carrying the methane gas are seen at rear of pen. More details and a look at the step by step process at What We Do/Food/ Biogas

Teachers posted at remote mountain schools often face not only inadequately equipped classrooms and a chronic shortage of teaching and student supplies, but harsh living conditions themselves. Strong bonds develop between teachers and their students when resources, like water and cooking fuel are scarce, not only teaching materials. More about teachers' challenges, and photos of their daily life are at About Minors / Minors' Team and Fellow Travelers / Teachers

At the very first commune level boarding schools where our support was requested 20 years ago, pots, pans, bowls, cups and even spoons were in short supply, and these were among items for which we were initially asked. Along with buckets.

These boys at a boarding school in Son La province took turns patiently and with good humor, using the few spoons and the only two bowls the school had. At one school we were asked for chopsticks. Schools in the northwest mountains were better off by the mid-nineties and we graduated from only providing food and utensils support, to additionally implementing food raising projects at these schools; please see below.

These boarding students in their dorm, greens foraged for lunch waiting on the wall, had only what they could find in surrounding countryside to garnish their rice or corn, brought from home on weekly visits. The new shirts were provided by the government shortly before our arrival.

This was one of the first commune boarding schools in Lai Chau province to receive assistance from Minors, in 1993, where we built a dormitory to replace this one, with help of our local partners. At this time we began implementing food raising projects for boarding students to supplement their ultra light diet, as above, right. In the mountains garden space is scarce, here right up to the classroom, taking the place of a playground, as it were. More current food raising projects at boarding schools are found at What We Do, Food

From the early 1980s in the refugee camps of northeastern Thailand, until now, more than thirty years later in mountains of northwestern Viet Nam, we find the great need is still water; it is everything, no more so than at the schools where we provide basic, very basic support. For details about the current water situation at many of these schools, and some solutions, please see What We Do/ Water

The UXO (unexploded ordnance) problem is still a serious threat in parts of Viet Nam, and especially in Laos. Please see details at our Map Room

Minors has for many years assisted patients in exceptional circumstances; several were victims of these deadly U. S. war leftovers that did explode decades after being dropped, whom we supported with physical rehabilitation. More details at What We Do, Patient Assistance