Standing at the corner of Preston and Somerset streets, there’s not much to see but a vacant lot adorned with white and violet petunias. This empty space houses a big dream for Can Le, president of the Vietnamese Federation in Ottawa, who hopes the lot will become a museum recounting the painful but moving story of the Vietnamese Boat People.
It’s a story of oppression and triumph, beginning when the first communist tanks began rolling into South Vietnam in the spring of 1975, forcing one-and-a-half-million Vietnamese to pack up their lives and flee their homeland in search of freedom. Most travelled by boats, some were crudely made wooden contraptions that carried small groups; others were larger barges with room for around 400 passengers.
In Ottawa, then-mayor Marion Dewar spearheaded Project 4000, an effort to sponsor 4,000 refugees to find a home in Canada’s capital.
Artifacts from these quests such as pictures, documents, clothing, letters and even the compasses that were used to guide boats to their destinations, will be used to tell stories of adversity, courage and determination, says Le.
But not before coming up with a hefty sum of funds to complete the project. “We originally estimated $4.3 million but it could be as high as $5 million,” says Le. So far, the federation has raised $1 million through fundraising events and donations from the private sector.
The most recent event, a successful fundraising gala in Toronto that generated a profit of $50,000 has pushed the project one step closer to its goal, says Mark Manh Nguyen, executive director of the Vietnamese Association of Toronto. The June event attracted more than 400 supporters, among them high-profile officials such as Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney, who, Le says, has been a big supporter from the start.
As well, a summer contest for a new logo helped spread the word about the project in Canada and abroad, attracting submissions from across the globe with a prize of $1,000. The winner, a Danish artist was announced in July, though his logo is yet to be showcased.
Despite these small victories, there is much work still to be done, according to the project’s architect and designer John Le, who is also Can Le’s son.
Despite the new challenge, he says he hopes the building will be a nod to Vietnamese architecture, and that it will be “a proud addition to the community.”
Le’s confidence in the project is unwavering. “Now that the land (has been purchased), it’s easier to get more money. Once construction starts, it’ll be easier still,” he says.
He says most of the bulk of funding will come from the private sector.
In 2009, Carte International, an electrical transformer manufacturer, donated $100,000 to the project. In another instance, a small hotel in Halifax donated $50,000. In both of these instances, donations were meant to honour employees of Vietnamese descent that had been part of the struggle against Communism in Vietnam
“By the end, we hope to get (financial) support from the government. But that depends on how much we raise in the community” explains Le.
“It’s been a long road, and there’s still a long way to go, but at the end, we’ll have something we can all be proud of,” says John Le.