After five weeks and more than twenty meetings with Vietnamese government officials in three provinces, we are disappointed to announce that EDV will be unable to deploy in Vietnam.
Our assessment revealed many interesting possible projects and a need for the kind of help EDV can provide, but unfortunately the political climate in Vietnam prevented us from being able to offer flexible volunteer opportunities or to secure our operations.
The groups that do operate here typically have very large budgets and spend months navigating the system to secure even the most basic projects. As a small group, we simply could not commit the majority of our resources without a guarantee that we could operate effectively in the long term. It was clear that Vietnam was simply not a suitable location for a volunteer-driven group like EDV.
While we're sorry to be leaving Vietnam, we've turned our full attention to The Philippines, where many communities are still struggling five months after four typhoons devastated huge parts of the country.
Read more about EDV's plans in The Philippines.
If you're interested in learning more about why EDV was unable to deploy in Vietnam, you can see our full assessment report.
You should be aware that this is our full, technical report. In the interest of preserving an accurate record of our assessment for our records, all details have been left intact including possible projects, opportunities, and other now irrelevant details.
If you are looking only for information on why we couldn't deploy, you can start with our "Challenges to EDV Operations" section on page 12.
