VOICE informally began in 1997 in Manila as a small legal aid office (formerly the Representative Office of the Vietnamese Community in Australia) to help the 2,500 stateless Vietnamese refugees in the Philippines. Since then, VOICE, in collaboration with other NGOs and community groups, has helped to resettle over 2,500 individuals including Filipino spouses and children. VOICE formally registered as a 501(c)(3) organisation in California, USA in 2007.
VOICE strives to achieve its mission through community empowerment programs. They have full-time staff based in Manila, Philippines, and abroad to advocate and give voice to their mission. They knock on doors of elected representatives and follow up on their program initiatives. In the field, their projects provide legal and social assistance to those who cannot speak for themselves.
The vision of VOICE is a strong, independent, and vibrant civil society in Vietnam.
Their mission is to improve the human rights situation in Vietnam by strengthening civil society and the rule of law in the country. To achieve this, VOICE works in the following program areas:
1. Capacity Building
Their six-month internship program is designed to train committed human rights social activists from Vietnam and to equip them with new tools to become more effective leaders in civil society. They provide the activists with more robust knowledge on content areas such as Vietnamese history, political ideologies, advocacy, human rights mechanisms, English lessons, as well as to develop functional skills according to the interns’ capacity and interests, such as in communications, multimedia skills, and project management, etc.
2. Advocacy
They run specific campaigns aimed at promoting fundamental rights in tandem with their in-country partners and INGOs using UN human rights mechanisms and dialogues between Vietnam and Australia, the US, and the EU.
Additionally, by providing a space for networking in our capacity-building program, VOICE connects the Vietnamese HRDs to representatives from regional and international mechanisms, enabling further opportunities for advocacy.
3. Civil Society Support
They assist in the creation and management of civil society projects in Vietnam, especially those engineered by their former and current interns.
4. Refugee Resettlement
They advocate and find durable solutions for refugees from Vietnam who have to seek asylum due to their persecution from the Vietnamese government for their human rights work and peaceful activism. In their refugee work today, they remember the roots of their organization which began as a legal aid office to assist almost 3,000 stateless Vietnamese refugees in the Philippines gain asylum from 1997 to 2009.
Approach
The VOICE team leverages in-depth country knowledge to identify synergy between the Vietnamese overseas community, its international partners, and local Vietnamese civil society leaders’ needs to deliver on their four main programs. VOICE’s efforts are assisted and enhanced by their independent affiliates, which share their mission. Their partnership comprises of the following organizations: VOICE Australia, VOICE Canada, VOICE Norway, VOICE U.K.
