STRESSSSSS !!!

Stress is an emotional and physical reaction to change. Everyone has stress. Stress can be positive and give you energy or it can be unhealthy and cause health problems. Stress for short periods may not affect you but stress over time can cause or make some illnesses worse, such as heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma or arthritis.
Some people have described a difference between good and bad stress, labeling good stress, eustress, and bad stress, distress. But either stress, either kind of stress, challenges us. It requires that we have the resources to rise to meet that challenge, that we have the automatic and natural way of producing the fight or flight hormones -- those hormones that are released -- epinephrine, norepinephrine, adrenaline -- all are there to provide us with a burst of energy, to rise to meet the challenges we need to meet. And so, good stress on some level is anything -- I think -- that feels positive to us but still requires that we have that kind of energy to be able to -- that burst of energy -- to be able to rise to meet it
1.Have you ever got stress? If yes, what kind is it?
2. Who or what made you feel stressful?
3. How did you felt when you get stress?
4. What did you do at that time?
5.How long did you cope with your stress?
6.Is there anyono helf you or you overcome the stress alone?
7.Could you share some good ways to prevent and cope with stress?

DISABLED CHILDREN

Today, many disabled children are found in Vietnam's remote country side where access to medical care is limited. They must endure unwanted attention when going out in public, being the subject of stares and pointing fingers. Even though every child has a different experience of handicap and their own unique story to tell, they all share a common thing, a life of suffering and misery, of being an outcast.

However, they also share a common hope of being able to overcome their disabilities and participate in life as fully and joyfully as other children do. I met and talked to some of these children, and learnt that underneath the disability, there is a normal child struggling to break free.

Below is some information of disable children in Vietnam:

- There are about 1.2 million disabled children in the country (including moving deformities, mental deformities, dumb, blind…). Children-victims of Agent Orange counts about 200,000.
- Most of the children’s families are in difficult economic conditions so that most time their parents spend for earning money, they rarely spend time to rehabilitate their children or pick their children up the functional rehabilitation centers. Besides, there are many families that locate far about 30km to centers and it is not convenient for them to take their children to centers

- The living conditions of disabled people in central Da Nang city and surrounding areas, which are considered hot spots of dioxin, are expected to be improved by US-funded projects.
- According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, aid donated for these projects will come from a 3-million-USD budget approved by the US Congress in 2007 for dioxin treatment and health activities in Vietnam .
- The US Embassy in Vietnam says each project will receive a maximum of 500,000 USD per year.

- Lack of text books in Braille, and shortage of specialist teachers was putting children with disabilities at a disadvantage. The problem was more acute at high school level because the teaching load was lighter in primary schools. School managers had a part to play in the integration of handicapped children into the school system.
- A training manual for pupils with disabilities was introduced at several special primary schools in Ha Noi on March 12.
- The curriculum, jointly compiled by the German Development Service (DED) and the Hue University , provides special methods to educate children, especially those with intellectual disabilities.
- The five-volume book is designed for teachers at primary schools and schools for disabled children nationwide. It aims to help handicapped pupils gain better access to lessons.

QUESTIONS:

1. Do you know any disabled children centre in Bien Hoa/ Dong Nai? What are they?
2. Did you come there? When?
3. How do you feel when you meet them?
4. What do you think of disadvantages that disabled children might have in life?
5. Do you know how much each centre pays for one child every month? Can you guess?
6. Is it enough for them to live?
7. What do you think of training program for those children? Is it good enough? What is the gap now?
8. Do you think disabled children/people can find a job after graduation easily? Why?
9. If not, what can government do to support for them?
10. What job do you think it is suitable for disabled children?

Entrance Exam For University: Should We Drop It Next Year?

Every year, the government has to organize 2 big exams out of so many ones: high school graduation and university entrance exam. These exams are just about 10 wks away each other. In order to do it, we have to spend a lot of time for preparation and money to organize. Below are some facts:
It costs us time to organize many phases for testing.
o Entrance exam of university this year will be held in 2 phases as normal. The first phase will run between 4-5 Jul for those who registered for group A and second phase will fall between 9-10 Jul for group B,C,D. The college phase will follow by 16-17 Jul
We spend so many resources for preparation:
o Logistics: Up to now, there are more than 1,5mil applicants for university entrance exam while college entrance one just received 620 000 applicants which made it account for 25% compared to university exam. With huge amount of applicants, it could give more pressure for university and college committee to find testing place which is bigger enough to handle that number of applicant
o Money: Moreover, we have to re-spend money again for renting room for testing while applicants should pay again ( 60 000VND) for these tests. In short, applicants will pay 12.6 billions in total. With cost increase, there is another proposal that each applicant should pay 100 000 which could help university/college committee be able to avoid financially loose. That means total spending could be higher than 12.6 bil.
o Committees have to hire many teacher supervisors during the test to ensure the effectiveness of this exam. Plus, salary for teachers to give marks for exams would be another burden to spend
o Although with good preparation, most of the time, student attendance is much lower than registered. One of the obvious reasons is that students apply for two or more universities and they finally choose one to attend. This will cause wasteful because we have to hire everything : place/teacher, etc…
Above are some numbers. So let’s discuss:
- Do you agree with above ideas?
- If yes, do you see any other disadvantages?
- If no, why?
- Do you think we should combine university entrance exam and high school graduation into one? Why?
- What difficulty/favour will you have if we do with that direction?
- How can we fix those difficulties?
- Is there any other way that we can make this more efficient?

DOCTOR SHORTAGE IN COMMUNE HEALTH CLINIC

In recent years, there are many patients died on way to or after entered hospital, because they haven’t been giving first emergency aid at their local area.
According to the result of social investigation at northern provinces, all the physicians who have just graduated from Medical universities don’t want to work for commune health clinic. They try to look for job in province hospitals or District’s health centers because of following reasons:
- At the province hospital or district’s health center, there are a lot of patients who are transfer from many other areas, so physicians can absolutely apply their knowledge to treat patients. Besides they also learn more experinces from specialist doctors’s treatment methods which are really important for new physicians.
- Morever there are many advanced diagnostic equipments to support treatment methods.
- The main reason caused physicians not to work for commune health clinic is low pay. At present the monthly salary of a pharmacist at hospitals and clinics is just over one million dong. The extra pay for a night on duty is just VND 10,000. All the income items aren’t even enough for their life.
Nowadays, almost doctors build their private treatment clinic at home for earning more money. Some physicians change their jobs because they can’t find out job in district’s health centers or province hospitals.
Although local auhtorities have many aid policies such as: providing accomodation, supporting transportation’s charge … but they couldn’t attract doctor work for commune health station.
Now this social issue is paid attention from every social levels and local authorities. We are listening to your opinions.
Questions:
1. Have you ever come to your commune health station ?
2. What do you think of this station’s quality?
3. According to you, it is necessary to maintain commune health station or not? Why? What benefit do we will have if we maintain it?
4. Have you got any suggestions to the Government in order to improve the situation which is mentioned above ?./.

FOREIGN WORKER IN VIET NAM

- The issue of worker’s jobs is always paid special attention to by National Assembly as well as local authority levels. In recent years, The Government has promulgated many policies in order to attract foreign and internal enterprises to do business in Viet nam such as : exempting or reducing land rented budget, supporting infrastracture builds
- In reality, the number of companies operating in Viet Nam is increasing day by day, therefore situation of unemployment has been solved. In some provinces like Dong Nai or Binh Duong, there is a shortage of labourers, especially in garment and leather shoe companies.
- However the number of foreign workers who are working for foreign as well as internal companies is increasing. Most foreign workers come from developing countries as Thailand, Malaysia, India … besides there are experts or highly skilled workers in many aspects.
- Nowadays, The Government is considering this issue. If we don’t control and have any regulations on foreign workers in Viet Nam, Viet Nam people’s job finding chance will be more difficult. Moreover a large sum of money is tranferred to other countries because most foreign workers have higher salary than Vietnamese labourers’.
- On contrary, if we limit the number of foreigner working for companies, Vietnamese labourers will not have more chances to learn experience as well as techniques from foreigners.
- In order to solve this matter, The Government encourages well-known universities as well as vocational training centers in the world to open new branchs in Viet Nam with the purpose of training experts and highly skilled workers./.
Questions:
1. Are there any foreign worker in your companies?
2. How do you evaluate foreign worker’s capacity?
3. What do you learn from them ?
4. Have you got any suggestions to The Government about situation of foreign workers

The Mass Media:How Influencing It Is In Shaping People's Ideas?

The development of the mass media has had great influence on our lives. We have come to depend on them for information and entertainment. In doing so, we let them affect on important aspects of our life.

First of all, mass media are regarded as the best ways to broaden our mind. For example, just by staying at home watching TV, surfing the net, we can know everything happening all over the world. In addition, we also learn how to take care of ourselves, cook good dishes for our family, educate our children, and behave with other people… throughout many programs on TV, radio or Internet.

Secondly, mass media including television, newspaper, radio is very useful for us to look for jobs. Seeking through the Situations Vacant column in the newspaper give us a general look of the jobs we are going to apply for and therefore, we will know whether we like these jobs or not. According to the latest survey, there are billions of people finding their jobs through newspaper, radio and Internet every year.
Besides, the development of the mass media, especially television also help us to fasten the relationship with our family members .For instance, after a hard-working day, every member of a family gathers at the living room so as to watch TV, chat, and discuss. I think that it's very comfortable and happy, particularly in this modern life.

On the other side of the coin, the mass media still have some harmful effects. It means that nowadays, there are more and more films shown on TV and Internet. And some of them are not good for us, especially for our children. Influenced by what they watched, our children can imitate and fall for temptations or bad ways.

Last but not least, some news in some newspapers is unreliable because few journalists have a tendency to exaggerate hot news such as scandals of famous singers, film starts…

To sum up, it can't be denied that the mass media have great influence in shaping people's ideas. In my view point, the mass media which are good or bad depend on our awareness and purpose.

¥ QUESTIONS :

1. Do you like watching TV, surfing the Net, listening to the radio…in your free time? Why or why not?
2. How often do you watch TV/read book or surf internet?
3.
§ What channel/program do you like?
§ What newspaper do you like?
§ What program do you like?
§ Why?
4. What would happen to you if you don’t watch television or reading newspaper for a while (for example: a week)?
5. What would happen if you do it too much?
§ Sick?
§ Less active
§ Others?
6. What do you think about our TV and radio programs?
§ good, bad, interesting or same content?
§ Is it suitable for Vietnamese culture?
§ Does it has any positive effect on society?
7. Can you name other advantages and disadvantages of the mass media?
Nowadays, young people tend to imitate singers, film stars to have their hair cut, make up, and dress. What do you think about that?
8. As you know, some newspaper did exaggerate some news in order to hopefully drive sales. What do you think about that? What impact would it cause?

SCHOOL QUITTING OF CHILDREN

To implement the agreement between VietNam Government and Unicef organization on protecting and taking care of children, in recent years, the Ministry of Education and Training has promulgated many social policies in order to socialize education, and ensure children in ages of 6 to 10 going to school.
- The state has many concrete solutions such as: building solid schools, supporting textbook and not getting school’s fee for the children who are living in remote areas …. As a result, the rate of children going to school has increased in recent years.
- However, the rate of children’s school quitting in large cities like Ho Chi Minh city is increasing. In order to understand this problem clearly, local authority carried out the social investigation in suburban area such as Củ Chi, Cần Giờ districts.
- The results of the investigation indicate that almost children left school are living in poor families at the moment. Their parents have not enough money to support children’s learning. In some special cases, the children have to work in order to earn money for their families. The concrete jobs of children are to sell lottery tickets, to clean bowls in restaurants, or to clean cars …
- On the other hand, there are a lot of poor families immigrating to large cities to look for jobs. The parents haven’t got stable jobs and often change accommodation. This reason badly influences to their children’s learning.
- In general, there are many objectives or subjective causes to lead to children’s school quitting. Nowadays local authority has made more effort to build night affection classes, to find out stable jobs for parents, to encourage children to go to school ….
- Besides, city’s leaders are listening to and receiving your recommendations in order to solve completely the matters which are mentioned above./.
Questions:
1. Do you know anyone quitting school?
2. Why did they quit your school ?
3. What do you think of the situation mentioned above ?
a. Is it a hot issue now? Why?
b. What impact might have for children on their future life if they quit school?
c. What are the impacts of this issue on society?
4. Have you got any suggestions to the local authorities to solve this issue?