The school is located in Đăk Ngo village, Tuy Đức district, Đắc Nông province, in the Central Highlands.
Đăk Ngo is a newsettlement located in an isolated area near the Cambodia border and about 150 km from Gia Nghĩa provincial town.
The population consists mainly of ethnic minorities, specially the H’mong, who migrated from Northern provinces and settled around the area, making their living by growing cash crops such as corn, cassava, cashew nuts, etc.
Public facilities in the area are still basic: access to grid electricity is limited; the road network is poor and consists of dirt roads which are dusty in the dry seasons and very muddy in the wet seasons.
Typical existing classrooms of the school
The school was first established in 2002 to provide education for the growing migrant population. Today it has more than 1,000 pupils in 39 classes, with children of ethnic minorities making up more than 90% of the total.
The school facilities are spread over 7 separate locations. It has however only 8 standard classrooms with a total area of 320 square metres and 6 temporary makeshift structures.
Many young children have to walk long distances to get to their classes.
Inside the existing classroom
The three new classrooms, of 62 square metres each, were built to replace some of these temporary classrooms and will be used by about 200 pupils.
The new classrooms built with our help
The Foundation contributed VND 264 Million toward the total construction cost of VND 277 Million.
Tuổi Trẻ newspaper managed the construction on behalf of the Foundation and contributed the balance of the cost.
The local population contributed labour for the clearing of the land, building ground works and classroom furniture.
Our representative, Dr Nguyễn Thiện Tống (on left), with children in front of their new classroom
The 3 classrooms were completed and handed over to the local community on March 9, 2010.