WHO (A-H)

Abandoned

The first encounter Minors’ staff had with orphaned and abandoned children in Southeast Asia was during the U.S. war at this Buddhist temple in Bien Hoa province northeast of Saigon, in 1970. Many Amerasians, or mixed raced Vietnamese-American children, were among the infants and toddlers abandoned, or left in early mornings at the temple.

Blind And Abandoned

Some years after the U.S. war, we were made aware of orphans still in Viet Nam or among the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons in Cambodia, who were not only abandoned, but physically handicapped as well. At this time Minors began resettlement and medical assistance for such exceptionally disadvantaged children.

Camp Children

Minors was formed as an organization in 1984 to support efforts to provide resettlement and related assistance to children in Ban Vinai refugee camp in northern Thailand who were orphaned or separated from their immediate families, many of whom had resettled in the U.S.
This camp was mostly populated with ethnic Hmong refugees from Laos, and several other ethnic groups, such as H’tin, Khmu, Lao and Mien. Our program assisted children at other camps as well, including Chiang Kham, Nong Khai and Panat Nikhom, and later at Wat Tham Krabok, all in Thailand.

Detained Families And Children

In the 1980s and 90s Minors helped out a number of families, and in some cases children without their families, held in Thailand as Unauthorized/Undocumented Arrivals, at jails or other facilities along Thailand’s borders with Cambodia and Laos, and in Bangkok as well.

Elders Alone

Since our earliest days as an organization in the early 1980s in the refugee camps of northern Thailand, until now in the Centers For Social Security at several provinces in northern Viet Nam, Minors has helped provide basic support for scores of elderly folks on their own,in difficult conditions.

Fire And Flood Victims

WHO a-h (7)
WHO a-h (8)
In the mid to late 1990s Minors provided emergency disaster relief at remote villages in central and southern Viet Nam in Long An, Quang Nam, Thua Thien Hue, provinces. Those most often left with the least were older women living on their own. After a severe flood these two widows had only a few remnants of their homes, neatly stacked.

Girls To School

For nearly a quarter of a century, Minors has focused our efforts on increasing enrolment, years in school, and most importantly days in attendance per school year for ethnic minority girls from the most remote mountain villages, which are also the villages in Laos and Viet Nam that have the highest number of households living under the severe poverty line. Please see What We Do for our current program, and for impact and results Recognition

Hospital Patients

Hospital patients in need of life saving surgery or treatment often leave the hospital to return home and die, in great agony in most cases, as they are without means to pay for treatment. Minors assisted many patients over the years by helping to cover surgery and hospital costs, along with large hospitals in Ha Noi Viet Nam and Vientiane, Laos. These were primarily patients from rural areas and distant provinces.
Over the years it became apparent that there were other, more disadvantaged patients in provincial hospitals; even though costs for surgery and hospitalization would be covered by the hospitals or their staff, here too, many would return home without treatment, as there was no money for food. Hospital staff on limited salaries contribute to patients' food funds as well, but this runs out, and then help is requested from Minors as patients prepare to leave for home, without being discharged. d
More details about this program are at Patients