Ogaki Toshiro

Textbooks used in the school do not tell us the content of the assistance provided by NGOs to developing countries. I am a high school student and joined the team of Japa Vietnam in order to know how private assistance to that country works. I experienced there the importance of paying visits to the projects undertaken and to people involved in the details of the programs to be assisted. The negotiation is slow and painful.

There was time left to tour the city and the industrial sites, to drop in the morning markets and go across beautiful mountains and rivers. National roads are well kept, but once in the countryside the realities are quite different. Farmers, NGOs and government try to build vital roads and bridges for the villages. I realized that roads are able to link people with each other.

Many developing countries like Vietnam or Cambodia are still suffering the traumas of past wars and try to overcome the hate and destruction occasioned by them. In the War Museum I could experience that and in my contacts with the Vietnamese I observed the dynamism of the people to build a strong and healthier society. This was the attitude of the people conducting programs with outside assistance. The projects once finished were the beginning of new efforts to be continued patiently.

I was deeply impressed by projects, like the Cow Bank of Tan Tao or the waterworks of Thu Thua. It was not only the project itself but also the meticulous way to handle it. Would not such assistance to micro projects become the basis of further cooperation at local and national levels?

I had many opportunities to learn and contact Vietnamese young people. I sensed a �gspecial smell�h in Vietnamese food, dance, music and games. I tried to inhale it and got the feeling of having obtained a new cultural energy that filled my heart with joy. The Vietnamese are smart and with high ideals, they are education minded. People do not look satisfied with immediate results and children have a sharp attitude to search. No matter the busy pace to develop, children do not lose their smiling faces. Young people are wonderful I felt.