Vetiver is a coarse tropical grass with the potential to form a porous living dam when planted along contour lines. It has long been used (including in Viet Nam) for many purposes - mats, baskets, thatch, fodder, medicine, perfumery. Vetiver Network Viet Nam is working to educate policy makers about vetiver grass. We have several workshops planned, in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and we are excited to report success in getting published in Vietnamese the World Bank handbook "Vetiver - The Hedge Against Erosion" for farmers and others - 5,000 copies, by the Agriculture Publishing House, with 1,500 immediately into distribution. Please contact us to get involved or find out more about vetiver. 

Quang Ngai Clinic Project is working to raise $250,000 US to build and staff a clinic for the disabled, handicapped, and victims of land mines in Quang Ngai Province of Central Vietnam. One of the hardest hit provinces during the Vietnam War, Quang Ngai has never recovered. Quang Ngai needs a clinic that can provide artificial limbs, ongoing therapy and aid for those injured in the war, including victims from buried bombs and land mines left after the war, as well as others who have been disabled since the war. The clinic is a project of the Friendship Foundation of American-Vietnamese, whose goal is to build "bridges of friendship" between the people of Vietnam and peoples of other lands. This project joins groups who were bitter enemies during the war. Supporting our dream are American war veterans, members of America's peace movement who opposed the war, supporters of the former Saigon government, and those on Hanoi's side, plus many others who care about Vietnam.

The clinic project is a living memorial to heal the physical emotional and spiritual wounds of the war. Information about the project, including architectural drawings and plans are available.

Luong Thi Gia Hoa Ryan, Executive Director, Quang Ngai Clinic Project, c/o Friendship Foundation of American Vietnamese; 1444 East Erie Avenue, Lorain, Ohio 44052, USA; email: ffavn@centuryinter.net.

Viet Nam Health, Education & Literature Projects (VNHELP) assists children, families, and communities in Vietnam in the areas of education and health care, and to promote cultural exchanges between Vietnam and the US.

In May, the Nguyen Truong To College Scholarship Program completed its seventh successful year. 185 scholarships were granted to students in Vietnam with a total of $14,400 for the 1997-98 academic year. As of June 1998, 773 scholarships awards have been granted to students throughout Vietnam since 1991.

In January, VNHELP began a hygiene project to support elementary schoolchildren in Can Tho and Ho Chi Minh City. The project aims to target approximately 600 children in the two cities in the first year and increase this number in following years. Basic hygiene kits for each student and workshops for teachers are included in the project.

VNHELP, 5232 Claremont Ave, Oakland, CA 94618; tel: (510) 658-8634; fax: (510) 658-8354; email: vnhelp@mcimail.com; http://www.vnhelp.org.

Viet Nam Friendship Village Project USA's mission is to cultivate reconciliation and heal the wounds of the Vietnam War by uniting veterans and caring citizens through international cooperation in the building and support of the Village of Friendship, located in Van Canh, near Hanoi. The project, conceived in the late 1980s by veteran George Mizo, is an international effort to create a village that will be a home for Vietnamese people whose traditional family support systems have been eroded as a result of war, poverty and international isolation. Nonprofit committees in the U.S., Germany, France, England and Japan are joining together to build the village, which includes a medical clinic, schools, vocational training and production facilities, and an international conference center. 250 elderly, orphaned, and disabled people will live in the village.

As of March 1998, an administrative staff of fifteen persons had been organized, with Nguyen Khai Hung serving as Director. The interior furnishings of four of the children's houses were completely installed. Nine children affected by Agent Orange were moved into the village, followed by eleven more children and ten elderly people.

VFVP-USA, Inc., PO Box 3805, Santa Cruz, CA 95063; tel: (408) 429-9197; fax: (408) 458-0819; email: vfvpusa@cruzio.com; http://www.cruzio.com/~vfvpusa.

Community Aid Abroad Cambodia (CAA) supports grassroots action to create solutions to agricultural and industrial threats to the dolphins of the Mekong River. For several years CAA has been working with villages along the Mekong in the areas of basic education, agriculture, and protection of local fish stocks. CAA has supported villages in the establishment of local development committees and sponsored officials from the Fisheries Department to monitor the rivers. The committees have drawn up their own local laws regulating fisheries and which provincial assemblies endorse. As a result, the rate of illegal fishing has declined dramatically.

Community Aid Abroad (Oxfam in Australia), 156 George St, Fitzroy, Victoria 3065, Australia; tel: 03 9289 9444; email: enquire@caa.org.au; http://www.caa.org.au.

Published quarterly by the U.S.-Indochina Reconciliation Project (USIRP)

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