How it started for Australia & Vietnam

After the takeover of South Vietnam by the government of North Vietnam, 2,000 refugees came to Australia in an unlicensed boat. These are the people that had to flee from their country in order to survive the civil war. Gratefully, Australia intake these people when they arrive. They experienced hard struggles during their journey that even children had been killed and women are raped by the so called pirates. There is still Australian citizen that has something bad to say regarding the refugees, but an agreement between the two governments was still made. This allows the relatives of Vietnamese refugees to migrate to Australia. Due to the Australia’s family reunions scheme, there are more than 90,000 refugees were processed and settled Australia during the late 80’s.

Organization

There are 3 chapters of Vietnamese Community in Australia that have been established and can be found in South Australia, Victoria, and Queensland. The organization has essentially developed from a scope of cultural services to a progressive cultural diverse group. The organization was intended to cater the needs of Vietnamese people, for individuals that violated their human rights and to those people that have been abused.

These are the specialized service that the organization offers:

1.    Society Centre

2.    Social welfare services

3.    VCA Ethnic School

4.    VCA Cultural Diversity Vacation Care

The management of the VCA only employs and appoints staffs that is professionally qualified and undergo a specific training to render service for Social Welfare through Community Access Services.

Every two years the management of VCA is elected, and it usually consists of a President and Vice President for Planning, Internal Affairs Vice President, External Affairs Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary. They have an Advisory Board which has a list if invites by the community management during the term, to acknowledge a scope of management delegated affairs and support the management for affairs that have an impact on the community of Vietnam.

Socioeconomic

By merging itself to Australia and putting-up Vietnamese restaurants to increase employment rate is already a contribution to the community. Vietnamese Australians are remarkably in demand in many professions such as Information Technology, Teachers, Engineers, and Pharmacist. This is the contribution of Vietnamese to Australia; they provide quality services to the institutions of their country. Compared to other communities that also live in Australia they are high in unemployment rate, crime, and poverty than Vietnamese Australian that gives importance on income and their social class level. Vietnamese Australians has a low rate of returning in their hometown.