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The Friendship Village

A screaming comes across the room. The young child's hand stretches out and reaches for something that is not there before retracting violently again. He cannot control his movements. He is fourteen years old. Braces hold his legs in place. Canvas straps keep his chest tied to the back of a wheelchair. But despite this, his scream is one of joy. The child is a victim of Agent Orange. He lives in the Friendship Village. The Vietnam Friendship Village is an Agent Orange orphanage and care centre founded in 1998 by George Mizo, an American veteran of the Vietnam-American War. It houses 120 children and 40 veterans in eight homes spread across the small, intimate complex. Located just outside of Hanoi, it is a place of both enduring hope and profound sadness. During the Vietnam War, the US dumped roughly 80 million liters of the defoliant Agent Orange across Vietnam. Now, three decades later, the dioxins continue to effect the lives of thousands across the country. The children in the Friendship Village are all victims of this war, all suffering from the after shocks of the chemical substance. But what sets the Friendship Village in Hanoi apart from many of the other orphanages and centers that take in children of Agent Orange is the care that it provides. Funds given to the village by benefactors and organizations from across the world give the children and veterans there access to food, shelter, schooling and health care. Oftentimes these funds far exceed what their families would be able to provide for them back home. So there is hope here. But hope in the most dire of circumstances. © AARON JOEL SANTOS