What We Do

The support provided to the girls at Little Rose Warm Shelter strives to be comprehensive. This follows that six aspects of the girl’s wellbeing are met.

1. Basic needs: a home, nourishment and hygiene.
2. Rehabilitation: A trained health worker is on site to care for the girl’s health and all staff members provide psychological counseling.
3. Awareness raising : All girls attend the local public schools and a life skills class is taught to the girls each month on a wide range of topics like HIV/AIDS prevention, exercise, nutrition, team work and self esteem.
4. Capacity building: Equipping the girls with the skills necessary to develop a career and becoming active members of society.  This is done through life coaching, vocational skills training and counseling sessions.
5. Recreation:  Talent shows and concerts are scheduled seasonally within the shelter.  The girls also go on a weekend field trip once a year.  They also have regular outings with the beneficiaries of other shelters in the city.
6. Family and community integration: When the girl reaches eighteen, every possible effort is met to ensure she is ready to support herself in society.  Employment opportunities and housing assistance is provided, as well as a microcredit program is available for beneficiaries who are in need of seed money to develop enterprises.  If possible, family visits are arranged throughout the girl’s stay at the shelter to ensure that family reintegration is possible.  All girls who leave the shelter, regardless of the their length of stay is monitored by LRWS for a minimum of six months to ensure that the girl has the right support.

In addition, to assist those who are unable to reside in the shelter, LRWS offers scholarships to girls in the community.  A total of thirty scholarships are given per year on the basis of need. Scholarships are used as an incentive for the families to keep their girls in school and it is often used towards tuition and books.

Other activities taken on by the shelter include advocacy work and community outreach.  Due to the cultural sensitivity around sexual abuse in Vietnam, few organizations serve these marginalized youth.  Little Rose Warm Shelter offers legal services for the girls and their families. These include but are not limited to applying for formal citizenship in instances of missing or undocumented migrants and filing charges against predators of child abuse.  Furthermore, through various workshops in schools and within the legal government, LRWS is committed to reducing the stigma of the survivors.  Public awareness campaigns are launched in the community and hundreds of prevention materials are distributed free of charge to combat child sexual abuse.

The advocacy work done by organizations like LRWS provide an exemplar to people around the area, imploring them that it is no longer acceptable to deny a child the right to grow up in an environment that is safe, clean and free of violence. When a few brave women and girls are able to step up and demand a better livelihood, the results can be profound.