ABOUT

ENGLISH CLASSES

2 employees of the orphanage are delivered english classes, 1 hour a day, by a volunteer so they could be a contact person for the future volunteers.

September 25, 2014

In The

News:

MONTESSORI-BASED ARCHITECTURE

We want to rebuild some floors of the orphanage. We want the architecture to meetthe needs of the children and the local staff. Want to learn more about this project?

September 26, 2014

A BIKE TO GO TO SCHOOL

We project to buy new bicycles for children. Indeed it is the only way for them to go to school.

September 29, 2014

The Hoa Mau Don Ophanage was founded in 1998 by Sister Pham Thien Don. She wants to support and educate the orphans and homeless children on street.

Hoa Mẫu Đơn means peony in vietnamese.

Ms Phạm Thien Don engages attentively her work. She has been working silently but absolutely meaningfully to reach this point.

After 12 years living a religious life, she really desired to help dropped children. As a result, she began working as a rubbish picker so she integrated the underpriviledged people's life. Gradually she realized that few children who were left by their parents or homeless went roaming for earning livelihood. Especially the biggest disadvantage is that they did not have a formal education as the children with the same age did. She started by gathering some roaming children to teach them in the park, provided them basic needs, e.g food and accomodation. For nearly 14 years (1998-2011) she, together with children, had been struggling for survival and development. After that she got an official housing certificate.

In 2014, we decided to make some changes in the organisation of the orphanage. The target is to base it on the Montessori Method of education.

About Montessori

The Montessori Method of education, developed by Dr. Maria Montessori, is a child-centered educational approach based on scientific observations of children from birth to adulthood.

Components necessary for a program to be considered authentically Montessori include multiage groupings that foster peer learning, uninterrupted blocks of work time, and guided choice of work activity. In addition, a full complement of specially designed Montessori learning materials are meticulously arranged and available for use in an aesthetically pleasing environment.

The teacher, child, and environment create a learning triangle. The classroom is prepared by the teacher to encourage independence, freedom within limits, and a sense of order. The child, through individual choice, makes use of what the environment offers to develop himself, interacting with the teacher when support and/or guidance is needed.

Multiage groupings are a hallmark of the Montessori Method: younger children learn from older children; older children reinforce their learning by teaching concepts they have already mastered. This arrangement also mirrors the real world, where individuals work and socialize with people of all ages and dispositions.

Become a Montessori-based orphanage

Our target is to become a Montessori-based orphanage, to use Montessori education in the daily life. But there is a long way to reach that result.

A Non Governmental Organisation, named Glob Civilisation has started this project, and it has already rallyed a group of people around that cause, especially Montessori Internation School of Vietnam.

You can read more about the project directly on the website of that organisation (click there to read the article in French) or you can read it in English here.