16 houses named after varieties of flowers, nestled under green trees is the Danang SOS Children Village a home for hundreds of orphaned children. It is here they have a big family with warm embracing arms of mothers in the Village.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Bay, from Dai Nghia commune, Dai Loc district, Quang Nam province, no longer feels isolated as she always has many obedient and studious children attached to her. Ms. Bay used to be a guerilla in the resistance war against the American’s and headed the Commune Women’s Union until 1995 when her mother, her only close companion, passed away. Afterwards, she volunteered to work in the Danang SOS Children Village. During the 11 years of working there, she has been a mother to 15 orphaned children including the smallest 20-month child. Although the challenge of being a mother to many children has made her face wrinkled, her eyes are sparkling with happiness. Her children are very obedient. After school, the older often helps her with cooking and the younger takes care of the smaller child. She is very proud of her obedient and studious children, especially Nguyen Nhu Tien who is a good pupil from the 1st to 11th class and has now been sent to Norway for study.
16 women in the SOS Village have 16 different plights, but a common aspiration among them all was to become mother. These women have overcome a great deal of difficulties bringing up their children including cooking, encouraging them to study, taking care of them when they are ill and even being awake all night to lull their new-born children to sleep when they are thirsty for milk.
Over the past 12 years, the Village has brought up nearly 250 orphaned children from Danang, Quangnam and several central provinces. When coming to the Village, 3 children whose parents died in a traffic accident were very small, the oldest was 4 years old, the younger 2 years old and the smallest was just 7 months old. They kept crying although mother Bay tried to soothe them. Despite of all this hardship, three of them have been secondary pupils and obtained good certificates ever year.
Many children from the Village have now become adults and have stable jobs, but they will never forget their mothers. Every Sunday, Mai Thi Viet, who is now an accountant in a company in Danang, often visits her mother Do Thi Ty and her younger sister and brother. She always shares her happiness and grief with her mother and has recently introduced her boyfriend to her mother. Nguyen Thi Vui, who graduated from Hue’s Pedagogy University and was selected to work in Le Loi Secondary School in Ngu Hanh Son District, spends months taking care of mother Ly in the hospital. Such pious children are sweet happiness for mothers. Being mother but never giving birth, orphaned but still having mother. That is happiness to hundreds of children and mothers in this village
