Part 2: Development of the Education Mission in Vietnam


Brother Grégoire Tân, Visitor
(2003 - 2011)

Brother Peter Phát, Visitor
(2011 - ....)

Traditional commitment of the Education Mission of the Brothers of the Christian Schools is the school and/or every means whose purpose and facilities point to and emphasize on the service of education of young people, especially poor people. It's for at times and socio-political circumstances more or less "normal or regular". Once these circumstances change more or less radically, like in Vietnam since the events of April 30, 1975, such "Tradition" must also change and/or be adapted appropriately so that the Education Mission bears as much effective results as possible.

Brother Gregory, Auxiliary Visitor of the first term of Brother Maurice, Visitor, then elected as Visitor of the District of Vietnam for two terms (2003-2011), realized that "we must turn our Education Mission onto the ways the most appropriate and adequate possible to respond to the actual and realistic needs of our young people of our times and places." [Cf. Renovation and Creativity in Education]

I. Creativity in Education

1. La San Đức Minh Vocational Center

On April 12, 2005 the very first of the kind of approval from the local authorities permitting to open this Vocational Center in the District III of Hochiminh City.

On July 2, 2005, Brothers and Sisters, Former Students and Friends, happily and joyfully gathered at the Vocational Center of Duc Minh for the "Grand Opening" of the center dedicated to Saint Joseph the Artisan.



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2. Detoxification Center

Brother Álvaro Rodríguez Echeverría, Superior General, presided the ceremony of Breaking Ground, starting building up the Center of Detoxification at Tan Cang, Dong Nai.

After several "paper-work troubles" and changes of places/locations, a building seems meeting all requirements - legacy in terms of permit and appropriate blue-prints, the Detoxification Center must change, again, place and location...

Finally - thanks God! Brothers and Former Students and Friends are more than happy to attend the ceremony of "Grand Opening" of the Detoxification Center on July 2, 2005 at Xuan Loc.


Lạy Chúa, đó là công việc của Chúa!
Opus Tuum, Domine!
Lord, It is Your Work!

The Center is active not for long, about a year, the local authorities pretend that "the Religious Community at the Center is a disguised Catholic system which is to propagate the Catholicism and Evangelizing the Catholic Faith!" So the Brothers must "run away" and rely the administration of the center to a group of lay people considered as faithful to the Education Mission.

In Summer of 2010, there are only 5 students. Four of them just finished the detoxification step, and one still in detoxification treatment.

By the beginning of 2012, the destiny of the Center is exactly the same as its "previous kind of the Lasallian establishments/centers" in the mid-seventies: forced to be offered to the government or confiscated. For which reason? - Only The Sky knows why!

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3. The Tam Nông Vocational Center (Tràm Chim)

By mid-2002, a pastor at the parish of Tam Nông (Tràm Chim) suggested that Brothers of the Christian Schools be involved in establishing a Vocational Center within his parish. The LaSan Community was established in 2003 after receiving the permit from the local authorities.

Brother David Brennan, Visitor of the District of San Francisco, USA and Brother Thomas Jones are more than happy to attend the Blessing Ceremony of the Center during the Summer of 2003.

Classes of sewing and comuter training courses were cordially and joyfully welcome by local people, especially young people.

So far so good until mid-2008 when the local government opens an establishment much much bigger and more well-equipped with tools and instruments and machines for a vocational center near by ours. The activities of the Lasan Community of Tram Chim therefore are reduced to so-called "Summer School" with tutoring Math, English courses and youth activities like for summer-camp.

It cannot last longer: the Vocational Center Tram Chim and the Lasan Community are obliged to be closed in mid-2012.

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II. Back to Sources: Faithful to Traditional Education Pedagogy.

1.  Boarding Houses

Beginning the 90's, the "Family Booklet" system seems to be much loosen. Several parents whose children are attending the secondary classes (from 6th to 12th graders) and higher education (Colleges/Universities) and who could not find any secondary schools or Colleges/Universities at their respective local, suggest that the Brothers open kind of Boarding Classes in Saigon, Hue, Nha Trang, Banmethuot, etc. so that their sons/daughters could continue their education.

Even though the Brothers cannot anymore run schools like before '75, they still can be in contact more or less regularly with students. In fact, young people who are enrolled to these "Boarding Houses" attend the governmental regular schools in the morning and return "home" to live daily with the Brothers under the same roof, dinning with them. The Brothers so can help them doing homework, tutoring, and if possible inviting them to the morning/evening prayers and accompanying them to the daily mass at the nearby parish church. That's good opportunity for the Brothers to live Vocation as Christian Brothers in a socio-political circumstances really "not normal".

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2. Classes of Love

Nobody can deny it: not every family can afford sending or allowing or urging their children to school. On the contrary, since the events of April 30, 1975, more than 75% of little boys and girls in Vietnam then unified (North and South) must co-operate with their parents to survive. According to the report of local authorities of the District 7 of Hochiminh city, there are more than 300 kids "illiterate", i.e. they cannot go to school just because they have to help their parents searching for food or any kind of nutritive materials to fill their stomach and their family's.

After more than four months contacting the local authorities, requesting the permit to open a few classes for these kids, they finally agree with "an amazing contract" which determines that the Brothers consent to pay for everything in terms of renting rooms for classrooms, stipends for teachers, etc., and the "only duty of local authorities" is to gather these kids to classrooms that are named as "Classes of Love."

The date set for "grand opening" is August 1, 2000, at 8:00AM. Everything's ready for. "Honored Guests" (local authorities) and teachers and supporters for the project... are present. But, NO student! Not a single one!
Sister Marcel, a Daughter of Charity, hastens to run around streets and "beg and push" girls and boys to come. After about 15 minutes, she can gather 25 of them. Ceremony of "Grand Opening" starts!

A week later, there are more than 40 kids attending more or less regularly the Classes of Love, and a few months later, more than 200.

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3. The first elementary school in Yali, Trương Vĩnh Ký

The local authorities approve the Brothers' project opening an elementary school in the district of Dak-Doa on July 22, 2004.

This is the first elementary school - regular and private school as before '75, that the Lasalle Brothers administer since the events of April 30, 1975.


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4. "Back to Cambodia"

Ecole de Miche has been active in 1906. The "bloody" events assassinating Vietnamese people settled or living in Cambodia in 1973 obliged the Vietnamese Brothers to move back to Vietnam, and Ecole de Miche was confiscated.

From: Peter Gilfedder

To: Vietnam Vtr

Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2005 6:10 PM

Subject: Opening of a Community in Phnom Penh 

Brother Grégoire Tan, FSC
Visitor
District of Vietnam 

Dear Brother Grégoire, 

Please find attached a copy of Protocol N° 050309, which was approved by Brother Superior General with the unanimous advice of the members of the General Council present, at their meeting held in Rome on 23 March 2005. This decision was made in response to your request to Brother Superior dated March 17th, 2005, seeking approval for the opening of a Community in Phnom Penh in the Kingdom of Cambodia. 

Fraternally yours, 

Brother Peter Gilfedder
Executive Secretary
 

Protocol Nº 050309

GENERAL COUNCIL DELIBERATION

District: Vietnam

Topic: Request for opening a new Community in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Explanation: Brother Grégoire Tan, Visitor of the District of Vietnam, wrote to Brother Superior, presenting a Cambodia mission proposal.

The proposal is for the Brothers of Vietnam, in conjunction with Vietnamese Brothers working in San Jose, District of San Francisco, to make a return to Cambodia, where there were Brothers from 1906 to 1973. The plan is to open a new Lasallian mission in Cambodia before it becomes difficult to get government permission, this being the advice of a group of Religious who are there.

The short term plan is to send 3 to 4 volunteer Brothers to form a community in Phnom Penh. The Brothers would spend the first year being inculturated into the Cambodian way of life through a study of the language and culture. They would render some educational service to the poor and participate in the catechetical ministry of the local Church. They could rent a house or an apartment with about six rooms in a low-income neighbourhood. At the end of the first year they would present an evaluation and a proposal for a long term mission to Brother Visitor and the District Council for consideration before it is forwarded to Brother Superior and his Council.

In a second phase they would subcontract with the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers to take care of 5 to 10 children with HIV as a good way to get entry visas for work in the Kingdom of Cambodia. They could offer some vocational classes such as in computer studies.

The Brothers in San Jose, San Francisco District, would assume the fund-raising for this mission with the permission of the Visitor of San Francisco. An endowment fund of $200,000 would be set up to support this mission of the District of Vietnam. The projected cost of the mission would include a rental fee of $600 per month. Room and board and other expenses would entail $50 per Brother per month.

District Council: 12-13.02.2005 YES: 23 NO: 0 Abst.: 1
Brother Visitor’s opinion: In favour

Vote of General Council: Date: 23.03.2005 YES: 4 NO: 0 Abst.: 0
Decision of Brother Superior General: YES

General Council meeting 05/14

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III. Some projects in near future

1. Vocational Center in Đà Lạt




2. Secondary School in DakMil

 

3. Boarding House and Elementary School in Lương Sơn

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IV. Joy and Hope for the future.

Joy

After the events of April 30, 1975, all of the Lasan establishments - 27 of them, are confiscated partially or totally. However, as Brother Stanislaus Campbell, Visitor of the District of San Francisco, wrote for the introduction to Brother Valery's Journal :".. .The story does not end in misery, however. Through courageous and ingenious action, the Brothers gradually overcame some of the major obstacles confronting them, established new educational ministries, and managed to attract young men to join them so that today the District of Vietnam, while not flourishing as formerly, has made a remarkable comeback while still operating under severe governmental restrictions".

 

In fact, after the fall of Saigon in April 1975, Vietnam has been isolated from the external world. Brothers and their former students and friends within homeland got trouble contacting with each other, what more difficult about contacting Brothers and Alumni overseas?
In December, 1986, after news that Brother Valery has successfully escaped Vietnam as boat-people and is attending La Salle University in Philadelphia was spread among former students of the Lasan Education System in Vietnam before '75 who have been resettled in the USA right after the fall of Saigon and/or a few months/years later. They joyfully tried to contact among themselves and decided to get together for the first time in Westminster, California. Some joyfully exclaimed:
"In Vietnam, there still are Brothers alive? I thought that they have been executed and the word and logo LASAN were banished by these [...]"

By the beginning of the 90s, the iron curtain has been little by little lifted up.
Brothers and Lasan Alumni in Vietnam search by any means to reaching out with young people, especially the poor, and trying "to do something" for them, being faithful to their Mission.

Some Vietnamese overseas look for appropriate occasion to visiting their family, forgetting not to stop by at their "old" schools even though they know these schools are no longer theirs, and of course to visit their "old" teachers and schoolmates and classmates, and eventually admiring their LASAN Brothers and Friends who "through courageous and ingenious action, gradually overcame some of the major obstacles confronting them, established new educational ministries, while not flourishing as formerly and have made a remarkable comeback while still operating under severe governmental restrictions" and vowing to help them by any possible ways.

It's a real and joyful "Comeback to the Sources" of the Brothers in Vietnam after 1975.

Hope

Right after the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, practicing religious faith of the believers of any religions, i.e. going to church or pagoda or synagogue, etc. is more or less difficult and restraint. How much more difficult and/or impossible for young people to enroll to religious life: Junior Centers, Seminaries, etc. must be closed.

By the 90s, the "Family Booklet" system is more or less loosen, young people - young men and young men and young ladies as well, start enrolling to religious life...

As for the the vocations to the Lasan Religious Life, although the "reason to be Educator Brothers" seems to be more darkened than ever since the events of 1975 (all schools and educational establishments confiscated, Brothers cannot any more teach in regular schools, etc.), the Brothers "managed to attract young men to join them" and "while not flourishing as formerly and have made a remarkable comeback while still operating under severe governmental restrictions".