DREAM ABOUT A NURSERY SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN OF WORKERS WORKING FAR AWAY FROM HOME

The increasing number of workers in Binh Xuyen district, Vinh Phuc province makes the child-care demand, therefore, increases rapidly; meanwhile, in this area, there is lack of kindergartens. This fact has created an opportunity for Ms. Nguyen Thi Hanh, a member of TYM – Vinh Phuc branch to expand her childcare services and create jobs for many local preschool teachers.

In the training course “Improving business management skills for women entrepreneurs” held by TYM in 2017, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hanh (born in 1986) – TYM member in Binh Xuyen district is one of the youngest trainees. However, at that moment Hanh had being joined TYM for 11 years and was one of the outstanding members of Transaction Office 01 – TYM Vinh Phuc branch.

After graduating from the pre-school pedagogy department of Vinh Phuc Pedagogy College, the young girl Nguyen Thi Hanh planned to open a private preschool to serve the workers with small children who were working far away from home. In 2013, she established Tuoi Tho Private Preschool. Her preschool is considered quite special compared to many others since the parents of the children in the school are all workers and often have to work in shifts. Therefore, she also arranges teachers to work in shifts so that they could send their children early in the morning and pick up late in the evening. Since then, her preschool has become a reliable childcare address, a safe and qualified place for taking care of children, helping their parents peace of mind to work to create income for the family. Currently, Hanh’s kindergarten is taking care of 150 children aged 2 to 5 years-old divided into 5 classes. Especially, her happiness seems doubled when the kindergarten has created regular jobs for 10 employees, including 08 preschool teachers, 01 kitchen staff and 01 security and cleaning staff. The revenue of her kindergarten reaches over VND 1.3 billion/year; the average salary for an employee is VND 5 million/month depending on the position.

For many years joining TYM, her loan size has increased gradually from VND 15 million in 2006 to VND 75 million as currently. During that over 10 years, it was not easy for Hanh to get such the big loan size and meet the repayment requirement. She established this Preschool with a lack of nursing facilities, limited management experience, and the challenge of building trust with people. Given those difficulties and obstacles, Hanh gradually overcame one by one and got initial achievements. Her kindergarten are now built on an area of 609 m2 with 5 classrooms, 1 kitchen, 1 meeting room, 1 aptitude training room, indoor and outdoor playground, and qualified clean water and hygienic system.

She shared: “Joining TYM, I feel secure about the capital sources to develop and expand my business. In addition, in 2017-2018, I was invited to attend a training course on “Improving small business management skills for women entrepreneurs” organized by TYM. I graduated major on preschool teaching, so the specialized knowledge does not make it difficult for me; however, for the first time running a business, I have encountered many difficulties as how to manage and balance effectively financial issues, where to find funding sources once I am in shortage of capital, how to advertise and introduce my school to the local people. Joining TYM has helped me answer these questions.” Through the training courses, she became more confident, improved her business skills; she gradually became more familiar with financial management, and marketing. Now, she can prepare her own business plans, strategies, and manage her work better.

Her working motto is to take quality to affirm the brand and to care for and educate children with the heart and all the love. That is the reason that not only her but also the teachers here always take care of children in the best way.