Media
Karen gives Viets a start
The Times - 2005
By Gerard Kelly
"I FEEL like we've made a huge difference," Karen Leonard says, after returning from Vietnam in April, her second trip in a year.
Ms Leonard founded the Lifestart Foundation, a registered charity that is helping poverty-stricken children and families in the Quang Nam Province in central Vietnam.
The music teacher and mother started the charity after returning from a backpacking trip in Vietnam five years ago. She was touched by the story of a 13-year-old street worker, who was selling postcards to support his family.
Affected by his struggle, Ms Leonard decided to foster him.
Her first donation bought him a new set of clothes and paid for his enrolment at school.
He is now employed as an apprentice chef.
Every year since, she has returned to Vietnam to help as many children as she could.
Last year, a local dinner dance and charity auction raised $15,000 for the Lifestart Foundation.
She told The Times, her past two trips have been the most successful, helped by the money raised last July, and the Vietnamese government, which donated part of a building to set up a school for disadvantaged youth.
The saying "give a man a fish and feed him for a day - teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime" rings true for Ms Leonard.
The Lifestart Foundation was created to help orphans, street kids and families become self-sufficient, she said.
Its Adopt-a-Family Program teaches families living in poverty the basics of small business.
Its Jobstart Program is designed to get street kids into apprenticeships and the Orphan Assist Program improves orphanages.
In the past year the foundation has sponsored 24 families. Wells and pumps have been installed, electricity provided for families, dirt floors have been concreted and iron roofs put in place.
The foundation has also put nine children into apprenticeships, paid for orthopaedic surgery for a girl with webbed feet, and provided other medical treatment for illness and skin disease.
"The families have now got a sense of hope. They've been inspired to work hard, and they're doing really well," Ms Leonard said.
"We want to be there long term. We don't just want to come in and throw some money around."