Dr Cheng Yi'En

Check out our IG @iexvietnam

Have a strong interest in education and youth related issues? Want to bring your ideas to bear on communities in the Vietnam? Challenge yourself to work in flexible, culturally-sensitive, and creative ways to design, leverage, and build towards impact. Over the last three years, IEx Vietnam teams have been building impact and supporting local changemakers across different parts of the country: Tra Vinh, Ho Chi Minh City, Kon Tum, Dalat, and Hue. 

Our modus operandi: design, leverage and build towards impact

We work collaboratively with partners and stakeholders, leveraging hi-tech, low-tech, and no-tech approaches, to improvise and redesign  initiatives for socially relevant outcomes. We contribute to both 'hardware' and 'software' wherever possible to support and uplift. We onboard local university youths who become our interlocutors but importantly join us as co-creators of positive change. We service and learn from communities, prototype creative ways to deliver education and learning in a variety of spaces across Vietnam, and develop projects with clear pathways to impact.  

I'm particularly keen to work with students on designing projects that are powered by a theory of change.

Your Connections, Your Partnerships

I would love for students to bring in their own connections to fuel their IEx projects. Why? I observed that such projects instil greater ownership among yourselves. So if you know of any other organisations working on painpoints and solutions in education and youth related issues in Vietnam, and wish to develop a project with them, let's explore that! Otherwise, we can match you to existing partners and senior projects.

Partners

Hearts for Hue is a Vietnamese non-profit organization founded in 2007, dedicated to improving the lives of disadvantaged communities in Hue City and the Thua Thien Hue Province. Its key areas of work include microfinance, livelihood support, education, healthcare, water sanitation, and community development. The NGO empowers women, children, and individuals with disabilities through programs such as small business loans, chicken-raising initiatives, and volunteer-led school improvements, fostering sustainable economic and social growth.

• Project H20 from 2025 Batch is working on a multi-stage project to tackle young people's health and livelihood prospects. Check out their IG @hueisdawae

EcoVietnam Group Community Library founded by Harry Pham, runs community libraries across provinces such as Tra Vinh (southern Vietnam). Formal education in Tra Vinh faces the following key issues (a) disinterest among children in formal curriculum, (b) hyper-focus on raising literacy rate and lack emphasis on personal development and other soft skills, (c) subtractive approach that is assimilationist and erodes minority ethnic identities and resources. Resources developed will serve the children and their families living in different communes across Tra Vinh. Many of these children are of Khmer or Khmer-Kinh descent. The Khmer ethnic minority group has historically been disenfranchised and marginalised in Vietnam. Geographically, Tra Vinh and its population comprise the largest low-income community faced with highest public school dropout rates in the country. Potential projects for 2026 and beyond

• digital learning assets

• collaborate with YEG to lead a wider Singaporean team to scale up senior projects, for bigger impact

Others

Extending seniors' IEx projects is a great way to promote sustainability and longevity among impact initiatives. Discover some possible projects here.

Questions? You can find me at ycheng@nus.edu.sg