About us

In 1968 Vietnam was at the height of its war with America. The country had been devastated by decades of conflict. Tens of thousands of people had been killed or injured, and hospitals and orphanages were full of children.

It was during this year that Gordon Barclay was surgeon to the British Medical Team in a children's hospital in Saigon, and Celia Barclay was working in orphanages in the city. A group of Quakers in London wanted to support their work, and so they set up the Gordon Barclay Vietnam Fund as a charitable trust.

Over the past 35 years we have worked tirelessly to help improve opportunities for children and young people in Vietnam. Since 1991 we have focused on supporting a school for the visually impaired in Haiphong, northern Vietnam. The headmaster and staff at the Haiphong School for the Visually Impaired, the Department of Education are administered by the People's Aid Co-ordinating Committee (PACCOM) of Haiphong.