As many of you know I visit Vietnam annually. I go there to lead a photo-tour across the country for fellow photographers and I use some extra time I have available to visit friends I´ve made during these tours. Most of these people I´ve gotten to know through my friend and photographer Nguyễn Vũ Phước who has an endless passion for people´s wellbeing and abilities to befriend and connect with who ever he meets.

I have told you often before that the very best thing about my travels are not the photos I take and bring back home, but the people I meet. I’ve met some of the most generous and kind people in those less fortunate places. These people I now call my friends, one of them is Thanh Nhàn a 25 year old woman in Vietnam I originally hired through Nguyễn Vũ Phước to do modeling for me.

What I didn´t know then was that the encounter with Than Nhán was about to change my life. Once in a while you meet people who truly are special. You know it because you immediately feel good around them and as you speak to them you feel inspired. You want to do more and be something better. My friend Nhán is one of those people. She is 25 years old, kind, smart and beautiful not just on the outside but her presence beams beauty. Nhán has made it her life´s work to help others, people in need.

I have been fortunate enough in my life to be able to travel, experience new things and of course photograph what I see. Often I see people less fortunate then myself, people that work hard just to survive. In some of the less fortunate places I have been to the rule of life is simple: if you don’t work, you don’t eat! So what about those who can not work?

Thanh Nhàn both looks and sings like an angel and not only that all her life philosophy is so well thought out and so mature, something you maybe don't expect from a 25 year old. Now I´m not trying to be rude or scorn young people but where I come from most young people live in abundance and therefore the view of life is often one-sided. Nhàn told me her story once we took a brake and I was instantly blown away.

When I first met Thanh Nhàn she worked in a restaurant and did occasional modeling. She spent all her extra time and the little money she saved up with disabled people. She has completely devoted herself to people who have a hard time working and difficulties with taking care of themselves. She opened a business called Lavin Home in 2015 where she teaches deaf people to make paper flowers which they then sell in her store. These flowers are no normal paper flowers but each is a handcrafted masterpiece and in there I found a place of peace. With the money she earns selling the flowers she pays the people wages and enables them to earn a decent living. She also teaches sign language and on the weekends she travels to visit people with Glass Bones (osteogenesis imperfecta), because they can´t travel themselves. Nhàn is not profiting from her business, quite the contrary, this is a difficult business to run for a young woman with little or no experience in running a business or employing people. Even so, she has run the Lavin Home since 2015 first in her extra time and now she works there full time, which I find remarkable.
Visit Lavin Home Facebook Page.

I haven´t experienced such determination before. Nhán has done more to help others than most of us will do in our entire life, and she is just getting started. I´m telling you she is a living, breathing angel.

In co-operation with my travel agency En Route Phototours I decided to help Than Nhán and Lavin Home by donating $100 of every sold seat on the Vietnam Photo Tours to Lavin Home, starting with the 2019 tour. We are also collecting contributions, if anyone wants to donate to the cause.

Nhàn is the kindest, most beautiful soul I have ever met!

My second way of pitching in with this wonderful workshop is this informal interview I did during my 2019 visit – hoping it will spread the word about Lavin Home and the good work Nhàn is doing. I wanted to introduce her voice and philosophy to the world and inspire people to visit the workshop, the café or her guesthouse.

Here is my Lavin Home - Place of Peace in Vietnam - photo essay taken in Hue Vietnam autumn 2019. Enjoy!