In February 2014 the Costa Foundation opened two new nursery schools in Vietnam for children aged 3-6 years old. These very young children have to learn to read, write and speak Vietnamese before they are even allowed to attend formal Primary school education. And, in most remote rural coffee growing communities, nursery schools are very few and far between.

For such small children; they have a long and tiring day at nursery school, starting at 6:30 in the morning and finishing around 5:00pm. So the Costa Foundation builds kitchens to ensure that they have school meals and provides beds for an afternoon sleep as well as playgrounds and well-equipped classrooms.

(New kitchen producing school meals)

Their lessons are full of rhymes and songs, repetition and writing as they are fully immersed in their new language. And, like children everywhere, they love to draw and colour.

So, Costa’s teams in the UK asked their own children to draw some postcards for their new friends in Vietnam and the three winners of Costa’s “Fundraiser of the Year” award took them with them on a visit to open two new schools …. And, as you can see, the children just loved them!

So much so that they wanted to send us some back and spent the afternoon drawing and colouring.

To those that raise funds for the Costa Foundation and the many people that have seen the charity born and grow into what it is today – these children in Vietnam truly feel like a second family.

What a fantastic opportunity this was to connect directly with ‘our’ Vietnamese children and exchange letters across 6,000 miles!

Written by Nicky Hill, PA to Costa’s Managing Director – January 2014