5 Chinese Vietnamese Final - National Treatment Agency for ...

The sample’s knowledge of the location and nature of drug information, advice and
treatment services was extremely poor:
I was told that treatment for drug users was to starve them [of drugs] … in a cold
dark room – is that true?
Only 16 study participants (14%) said that they knew of any service from which to seek
help or advice on a drug-related problem.
12.2 Cultural competence
A basic framework for assessing cultural competence is provided in Section 6.
The study report summed up the social exclusion of members of the Manchester
Vietnamese population, who:
are often misidentified as Chinese and their unique culture and needs have not
been fully recognised. Vietnamese people are very isolated and there is not much
integration between them and other communities … The majority of Vietnamese
in Manchester who fled Vietnam lived in North Vietnam under the communist
regime … integrating into a multi-cultural society is a big change and a massive
challenge for them … Their basic education levels are under the national
education standards … Unemployment rates amongst Vietnamese are high …
This particularly affects those who came to Britain when they were in their early
40s or older.
Several study participants commented that the consequence is that traditional
Vietnamese culture is disappearing among the Vietnamese community in the UK:
The Vietnamese culture has changed so much due to the transition from Vietnam
to the UK and this has had a massive impact on the behaviour of Vietnamese
people.
When I first came over to England, New year and Children festivals was alright
but suddenly it gone smaller and smaller … Before, me and my sister used to
dance for the Vietnamese community, but now it’s all gone and we don’t hear
about them [Vietnamese festivals] anymore.
Some commented that the relatively small size of the Vietnamese community in the UK
when compared to Chinese communities also contributed to their disappearing culture:
I think that Chinese is a lot more popular than Vietnamese community, ‘cos there
are a lot more of them.
The people as a whole seem to have been undermined due to the fact that their
community is one of the smallest in Britain and that the Chinese community
outnumbers them.
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