Vietnam’s only centre offering ‘detoxing’ courses for online gamers will finish offering its courses, despite huge parental demand for their children to continue receiving treatment.
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| Farming parents meet their children who have given up online games after attending the centre’s courses |
Good model
Five years ago the Southern Youth Centre in Ho Chi Minh City opened a Semester in Army life skills programme for children suffering from behavioural difficulties. The centre later opened the country’s first ‘detox’ course for online game addicts in 2008.
Parents from Tuyen Quang to Ho Chi Minh City submitted their children to the new course, with the hope of curing them of their addictive behaviour. To date, the centre has run four courses for game addicts during its four years of operation, with an 80-90% success rate.
The course helped many young people to give up their gaming and improve their relationships with their parents. The centre also fielded phone calls from families seeking help.
Closure
According to Tran Thi Kim Lien, the centre’s Deputy Director, despite gaining good results, they had decided to stop the courses.
The Deputy Director said, “Such a centre with the financial and human resource difficulties we have, can’t receive every game addict, we are only capable of pilot programmes. We are ready to share our experience and provide support if other centres open the courses.”
“We have carried out a range of life skill education models for young people but none of them posed as many difficulties as the rehabilitation programme for online gamers. This work is ten times difficult more than the Semester in Army programme,” Lien said.
Lien claims she received numerous threatening text messages from gaming addicts and alleged that she’s experienced deliberately caused traffic accidents through her work.
