Visually-impaired people in the Vietnamese countryside have difficulty finding suitable jobs due to lack of specific skills and financial troubles. Many of them have left their family and gone to Ho Chi Minh City to look for opportunities.

Thanks to Blind Associations, visually-impaired people in Vietnam have a chance to become useful members of society, although they still face many problems.

Among the organizations for visually-impaired people is Go Vap Blind Association, a small house on Thien Ho Vuong Street. It is a common place for blind people in Ho Chi Minh City to meet. Together, they are building a strong community of blind people and sharing the difficulties that come with being visually-impaired in Vietnam.

A needy family

Nguyen Thi Minh Xuan, a member of Go Vap Blind Association, has been blind since the age of three, after a case of measles took her sight. Years ago, after studying Braille in Nguyen Dinh Chieu School for Blind Children, she went to Binh Duong and worked as a broom maker.

However, life became very difficult because the little profit she earned from this job was not enough to support herself. Therefore, she came back to Ho Chi Minh City and joined Go Vap Blind Association to look for other opportunities.

At the association, Xuan married Nguyen Van Phung, also blind, and began looking for jobs in Ho Chi Minh City. Over time, the two blind people have made every effort to build a better life and raise their children.

Everyday, Phung sells lottery tickets around the city while Xuan takes care of their children at home. The meager income they earn, VND 200,000 per day, is used to pay for the many expenses of the four-member family, such as utilities, food and the children’s school fees. 

As a result of his impairment, Phung faces many troubles during his work day. Several times, he has been duped by others, who snatched all of his tickets and ran away. Phung recalled, “Once, I lost all the tickets and owed the dealer VND 900,000, which I had to pay within a month.”

However, he is always overwhelmed with joy whencoming home to his family. Once, he brought home an organ which a lottery winner gave him and happily said to his wife, “ I will study to play this organ so I can perform at weddings to earn more money.”

Fellow sufferers

Another member of Go Vap Blind Association, Ngo Thanh Toan, 33, blind since age four, is also a lottery ticket salesman in Binh Thanh District. Although blind, he has never given up his dream – to become a teacher of blind children.

After finishing high school at Nguyen Dinh Chieu Special School, he applied for the University of Social Sciences and Humanities Ho Chi Minh City. However, his application was not approved due to his limited health.

Besides selling lottery tickets around the city every day, Toan makes every effort to study for the upcoming entrance examination to be admitted into the National College of Education Ho Chi Minh City, where he will be trained to become a teacher.

In another case, Le Tan Duong, who lost his eyes when he was 14 after a grenade leftover from the war detonated, went to study Braille in one of the pagodas in Ho Chi Minh City years ago.

For his enthusiasm, in 2008 he was appointed an executive of the Association of Blind People in Tay Ninh province. However, the job did not bring him enough money, so he had to come back to Ho Chi Minh City and sell lottery tickets to support himself. He is now a part of Go Vap Blind Association.

Only 15 percent of the two million blind people in Vietnam have been trained and hold suitable jobs to support themselves. People with visual impairment face many obstacles in studying necessary skills due to their limited health and ability to acquire knowledge. Some of the few suitable jobs they can do are giving massages, selling lottery tickets and basket weaving.

According to Nguyen Dinh Kien, president of the Blind Association in Ho Chi Minh City, to help blind people the authorities need to sponsor them financially and provide more study programs to improve their skills, while recruitment agencies should open their minds to hiring visually-impaired people who have been trained, as well as giving them a chance to try.