At our supper meeting on Monday 12th of September, the speaker was Anne Woolley a member of SI Weston-super-Mare, who had a remarkable story to tell us of her adoption of a Vietnamese little girl called Tam.
Anne had 3 little boys and she and her husband wanted to complete her family with a little girl. She saw the terrible, but now infamous picture of the little child running naked down the road having been burnt by napalm, and decided at that moment to adopt a Vietnamese child.
She then related how she surmounted tremendous obstacles with great tenacity with the help of contacts that she made in Vietnam, and a campaign mounted by the Daily Mail editor David English to bring orphaned children to the UK and give them a fresh start in life. Anne recalled the terrible air crash in which many of the orphans who were going to come to England lost their lives, but miraculously Tam survived and was eventually brought to England and looked after at The Okenden Venture charity until Anne was able to take her to their home in Weston.
The child’s traumatic start to life and the air crash had a profound effect upon her, but she is now happily married and living in Cambridge. Anne and her family have been amazing, and they still visit Vietnam, and are involved with the charity, Project Return, whose aim is to improve the health and education of poor families in Vietnam through locally run programmes. Anne stressed that the Vietnam that tourists see, is not really the true Vietnam.
The evening was a revelation to us all and we would like to thank Anne for sharing her remarkable experiences with us.