ANNUAL REPORT 2017
www.maitamhouseofhope.com
“To save one life, is to save the world entire”, from the Talmud
Mai Tam House of Hope, Saigon (HCMC) continues to excel in its delivery of human services to the most vulnerable in society- children and mothers.
We proudly announce here that the Director and Staff of Mai Tam were honored and recognized this year for a Best Practices Award, at the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam, (August, 2018) -- for the Mai Tam Model of HIV/AIDS care and prevention for mothers and children.
We have consistently and without bias pointed out that Mai Tam is one of the best organizations in Vietnam, providing these highly specialized services to HIV/AIDS afflicted children and widowed mothers
Highlights for 2017:
- Through our website, we were able to generate US$39,546 in donations on-line and through a fund raiser in Boston, November 2017. The amount of $35,909 was transferred in the calendar year while the remaining $4500 (late arriving donations) was transferred in 2018.
- Following on our mission statement, no administrative fees of any kind are taken from donations. (PayPal takes a small fee when funds come through that site)
- Mai Tam’s client population is again increasing incrementally, with some 19 infants age birth—3 years, and some 90 children overall in the shelter and 270 in the community, the count of mothers who are widowed and with AIDS remains stable.
- The founders of this web site, Jill and Robert Morris, completed a Mai Tam site visit in December, 2017. This was a very positive experience and another opportunity to interact with the wonderful staff, volunteers, and clients. We met many of the children and some who had grown into teenagers and who exhibited a highly normalized interaction with us, as foreigners. The girls were very friendly but shy; the boys rambunctious and challenging.
- During this visit, Fr John rescued a new born from the Public Hospital, where that staff alerted him of the pending sale of the baby to unidentified foreigners, possible traders in body organs. HIV is not normally diagnosed in new borns, but this infant was later diagnosed as HIV positive. The child is safely in the hands of the Mai Tam compassionate staff.
- Fr John is now receiving teenage mothers who are HIV/AIDS positive, who grew up positive! They arrive at the doors of the shelter!
- The young adolescents now face the reality of their own identity as both orphan and HIV positive and subject to rejection in society; and yet one client is now finishing nursing school, another entering university. There is Hope!!