There is a house by the sea 120km from Hanoi called Thien Giao. In this house the occupant’s heartbeat beats in unison for one hope, the hope that they will all be able to love and be loved. I visited this house one year ago, and it did not leave me any lasting impressions or feelings. I was there again recently, something have changed in the house, something has sparked and moved me to look into, to delve deeper into the bonds of the occupants in this house and the bonds between me and them.
The occupants are all victims of Agent Orange that have been abandon and given up hope by their family. Founded by Mrs Huong this home cares for 10 Agent Orange victims. It is more than a care centre; it is a home where everyone is a family member, caring and loving each other. The victims are taught basic farming, cleaning, and caring for younger ones and basic labour skills. These gave the victims more interaction between each other and also help them to be independent. All these reduce their tendency of becoming aggressive and also reduce the frequency of spasms.
Apart from that, I am also surprised and touched by the idea of two occupants Hanh and Them getting married and forming a new family. Hanh and Them have through their time spent together in the home, shows signs of emotional bondage between each other.
Miracles do happen as thru time and love. They have display significant improvements physically and emotionally in their daily life. Less aggression, less personal attention needed, more independent, more loving, more positive.
I have seen many documentaries about victims of Agent Orange and are often touched by their melancholy, despair and pain. In this series of photos, I wanted to capture the positive interactions and the happiness of the victims. There small and elusive moments that are rarely seen.
***Agent Orange is the common name used for one of the herbicides by US military as part of the herbicidal warfare program during the Vietnam War from 1961-1971. It is later discovered that Agent Orange contains an extremely toxic dioxin compound. The idea of the US Military is to destroy forest, rural land and food crops thus depriving the guerillas of cover, support and food supply. Vietnam estimates 400,000 people were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with severe birth defects.