Cuba Tackles Ho Chi Minh Trail

Cuban engineers have been hired to supervise construction of the longest section of a planned 1,050-mile highway along the route of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a critical supply route for communist fighters during the Vietnam War.

The project entails construction of more than 300 new bridges and is scheduled to be completed by 2004. Cuban engineers have already been involved in construction work on the highway: In May engineers from a joint venture construction firm, VIC, started work on a 55-mile section in the mountainous central provinces.

In 1973, in the last stages of the Vietnam War, Cuba sent a company of 13 engineers to reinforce the same section of the trail, laying the foundations for North Vietnam’s 55-day offensive, which brought the conflict to a close two years later. (Miami Herald)

Poems of Ho Xuan Huong Published in US

In his State Dinner address in Hanoi on November 17, President Clinton, in a listing of cultural bridges, mentioned that the “200-year-old poems of Ho Xuan Huong are [now] published in America, in English, in Vietnamese, and even in the original Nom, the first time ancient Vietnamese script has come off a printing press.” The book to which the President referred is Spring Essence: The Poetry of Ho Xuan Huong (Copper Canyon Press, 2000) edited and translated by John Balaban. Ho Xuan Huong, whose name means “Spring Essence,” was a concubine or “second wife” who wrote some of the most startling poems in the Vietnamese canon. Balaban has spent ten years translating them in the first book of her work to appear in the West. Ngo Thanh Nhan, a computational linguist, has digitized her calligraphic script which has never before been printed. James Do Ba Phuoc designed a new font for the modern Vietnamese in this “tri-scriptural” book. As a spin-off from Spring Essence, the three of them have just begun The Vietnamese Nom Preservation Foundation to save the 1000 years of writing in Nom that is about to be lost to the world. http://nomfoundation.tripod.com/

NGO Profile: World University Service of Canada

1404 Scott St.
P.O. Box 3000 Station C
Ottawa, ONT Canada, K1Y 4M8
Tel.: (613) 798-7477 Fax: (613) 798-0990
E-mail: wusc@wusc.ca, http://www.wusc.ca
Executive Director: Mr. Marc Dolgin

World University Service of Canada (WUSC) is a charitable not-for-profit organization incorporated in 1957. WUSC is a network of individuals and post-secondary institutions who believe that all peoples are entitled to the knowledge and skills necessary to contribute to a more equitable world.
WUSC’s mission is to foster human development and global understanding through education and training.
WUSC’s activities can be grouped under the following five main categories:
1. WUSC sends Canadian volunteers overseas (WUSC volunteers are active in the following countries: Benin, Botswana, Ghana, Malawi, Peru, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Viet Nam and Zimbabwe)
2. WUSC sponsors student refugees
3. WUSC provides development education
4. WUSC implements development projects (some of the countries in which it works are: Bangladesh, Benin, Botswana, Ghana, Kosovo, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Peru, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Vietnam and Zimbabwe)
5. WUSC manages scholarship students in Canada
WUSC in Vietnam
WUSC began working in Vietnam in 1991 with the placement of a specialist in teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL). WUSC soon built on its commitment to filling the training needs of the emergent tourism sector with the placement of more specialists in tourism management in 1995. During the same year, WUSC installed its first language (English and French) teachers through the Development Worker (DW) Program. 1996 and 1997 saw the rapid expansion of the Development Worker Program throughout the country, largely driven by the placement of EFL teachers. To date, WUSC’s major partners in Vietnam continue to be universities.

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