Phong Le is Room to Read’s Country Director for Vietnam. Last week, in addition to his usual duties, this meant hosting our annual Country Management Conference (CMC), a time when our country, regional and global management teams gather to make decisions on strategic and operational matters affecting the organization as a whole. An avid photographer, Phong agreed to share some of his pictures and reflections from the event.
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I named this post “The Color Palette,” because that is the best way I can think of to describe Room to Read—different people from different continents, countries and cultures working together to provide better education for our children. After hosting the Country Management Conference this year, I see us as colors on a palette, and am more confident than ever that together we are painting a bright picture.
This year’s CMC was a long-awaited and very inspirational event for me, and for the rest of the Room to Read Vietnam staff. We have been hard at work preparing enthusiastically for the arrival of our colleagues from around the world, and the effort was well worth it.
The week began with a celebration of CEO Erin Ganju’s 10 years of service to the organization. We then continued the conference with many meetings, workshops and discussions around how to make our programs the best they can be, and how we can learn from each other’s successes. We ended the week with a farewell dinner that introduced Vietnamese culture to our guests, with traditional dance and music performed by our staff and their friends.
The cap on a truly inspirational week was a group site visit to see some of Room to Read Vietnam’s projects in the field. I was so touched to see our Girls’ Education program participants speaking confidently with our guests from other countries and hearing the young students in our libraries read aloud for us. I was reminded of the power education has to connect people, and to make distances—even between countries—seem shorter.
Lear more about our work in Vietnam.
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