Initiatives to create jobs for the blind

I was born and grew up in a poor village in the middle of Vietnam. All of our three blind sisters and brothers were blind inborn because our parents were infected by orange dioxin in the American war. I overcame my miserable and difficult childhood with support and care of my family, teachers and friends to set up my business in Hanoi capital with my empty hands. 

In 1997, I became a teacher at Training and Rehabilitation Center of Vietnam Blind Association (VBA). The first years were very hard, I had to teach at the center in day time and take motorbike taxi to continue my university education in the evening. In my free time, I did massage at guess’s house to get more income.

My students are visually impaired persons from different provinces nationwide, each person with their own difficult situation. VBA gathers these members to take care of their spiritual and material life, however, unemployed visually impaired persons are still crowded in the society.

On the arduous way of my life, I always cherished many plans, I wanted to do something to help the same situations as me. After seven years of thrift and saving, I decided to open a small massage service center named Hoang Kim in 2004, with the goal of health care for everyone done by my visually impaired students.

At that time, massage service by the visually impaired in Hanoi had not develop yet. Moreover, I am a blind opening massage service then many people thought that this was a daring and adventurous idea. I surveyed to rent a house, purchsed equipment, recruited and trained more skilled massagers with my little capital of only three million VND (equally to 190 USD at that time - translator). Many other people did not support me to open massage service for fear of its existence. Thanks to help and encouragement of my friends, I consulted and learnt more massage skills everywhre, from stations (untrained massage) to massage restaurants or service rooms in Hanoi to apply to my own service.

During operation period, we encountered many difficulties such as limited budget, changeable rented places and elsewhere in the society, many people did not aware about massage profession of the blind. At that moments, I always concerned and discussed with other employees to find the best method. With a professional passion ans determination, we gradually overcame difficulties and received people’s support.

After seven years of operation, my massage service center was changed its locations three times and upgraded its work conditions (from only two rooms with three beds in 2004, to eight rooms with ten beds and ten massagers at this time). The building is now more spacious and cleaner. Customers come tu us more and more, employees’ earning is gradually improving, the current average of two million VND/ a month (125 USD - translator), sometimes up to five million VND/a month (312 USD). With their stable income, many employees have been buying many items for personsl use and even supporting their family, such as Mr. Nam in Quang Tri province, Mr. Tuan in Quang Binh province, especially Mr. Tam in Hanoi has built a large house, etc. One more important thing is they have an optimistic vision of life, remove their inferiority, guilt and live self-confidently. Another example is Ms. Xuan in Quang Tri province. Before she cleared of trees for cultivation, she was alone on the high solitary forest wholeday. After eight months doing massage, she becomes another person, communicates farelessly and accumulated some savings to support her baby and old parents in her hometown.

With our customers, our massage is a reliable servicen, with our visually impaired employees it is their home full of love. I myself always close and timely encourage when they are in difficult, no difference between the employer and employees, but together with them in happiness as well as sadness. We have a medicine cabinet to serve ourselves if sickness, monthly organise intimate parties, give presents to employees on traditional holidays, their sickness or family business.

Especially, after a period of doing massage, many employees have accumulated their own capital, experience and management skills, then they come back their locals to open massage service efficiently, expand more employment for other visually impaired people in Vietnam. Up to now, my massage service center has created jobs for more than 100 visually impaired people, in which more than 20 people open their own massage service at locals. For example, Mr. Tuan, Mr. Ky and Mr. Thong in Ha Tinh province, Mr. Tu and Mr. Hung in Nghe An, Mr. Hung in Quang Binh and Mr. An in Hai Duong, etc. I also keep contact with these people to encourage, consult or help when they need. Therefore, their business is more and more efficient.

As a information technology teacher for visually impaired people at Training and Rehabilitation center, I fully understand the great effect of IT for the visually impaired. Since learning computer, they have a good means to study and improve their understanding. However, the chance to get a job from information technology for the visually impaired in Vietnam is not much. Once again, I wonder how to help the visually impaired find a job using IT. After a long time preparation, I officially opened the website named www.hoangkim.net.vnon 16 October 2010, aiming to promote and introduce blind massage, introduce blind mirrors who have been overcome their difficulties and integrate into the society, and it is a forum for those interested in healthcare and information technology. The website also particularly prefers to include information of the visually impaired finding a job and free introduction of employment. Currently we have 15 voluntary collaborators with their regular article. After nearly six months of operation, the website has more than 300,000 visitors, 80 to 100 users log in at the same time everyday, therfore, more customers know our service. We always receive encouragement and praise of readers. The website www.hoangkim.net.vnhas been daily updated and renovated to sastify its readers and attrach more customers, as well as create more job opportunities for more visually impaired persons to have a stable life, reduce their burden to their family and the society.

When visiting our massage service, Mr. Cao Van Thanh, standing vice president of VBA said: “Hoang Kim is a typical of the spirit of overcoming difficulties and self-help each other in the blind community. Mr. Hanh has helped his blind to be self-confident, to work to reduce poverty and positively contribute to the development of the society. Massage service by Hoang Kim also contributes its little part to health care for the community”.

In the future, step by step we will invest in equipments, improve job capacity and life for our staffs, upgrade Hoang Kim’s website with diversified content, promoting job introduction service for the blind. We also call and attrach more volunteers and donors to help our website, help Hoang Kim to enhance its service quality and the blind’s capacity; continue to create more jobs for the visually impaired and support them to expand this massage service at other provinces.

With the help of its collaborators, Hoang Lim will soon propose to VBA to organize training and seminars on the role and solution to set up and develop careers, service to create jobs for the blind and improve people’ health. Hoang Kim will also participate in meetings to develop supporting policies for the visually impaired of the government with better conditions in the business, production and livehood creating

 Hoang XuanHanh

Director: Hoang Xuan Hanh

Address: No 18, alley 639, Hoang Hoa Tham street, Vinh Phuc, Ba Dinh district, Ha Noi.

Tel: 04. 3761 52 85 - 091 22 51 884

Email: hoangxuanhanh1975@gmail.com

Yahoo nick: hoangxuanhanh1975(online 24/7)

Skype nick: hoangxuan

Video of Hoang Kim blind massage