We are delighted to inform you that this week we received the news that our UNIS Hanoi Cultural Collection has been awarded the Circle of Excellence 2022 – Best of Asia-Pacific Awards.

This award has been given to us by CASE (The Council for Advancement and Support of Education) the most renowned body in the field of educational advancement in the world. (Think Oscars)!

This passion project has been made possible by so many and the global recognition is well deserved for a truly ground-breaking project which puts UNIS Hanoi at the very forefront, leveraging philanthropy meaningfully for its learning community.

Our Cultural Collection was created as a rich learning resource for our students and community to explore Vietnam’s extraordinary cultural heritage in the heart of our School campus.

UNIS Hanoi won its award category in recognition of Constituency Engagement against strong competition from both schools and universities in Asia Pacific, and will be featured in the international ‘Best Of  Awards Gallery’ in Melbourne at the regional CASE conference in Spring 2023.

First and foremost, recognition goes to the vision of our donors, Nhung Nguyen and Mark Rapoport founders of 54 Traditions whose generous gift of more than 200 artefacts launched the project and the generosity of the Lam/Huyen Family whose passionate support of the project’s vision, made our Ly Thai To Learning Centre ‘Museum’ possible.

Of course it was a team effort to realise the vision and the Advancement Team led the project from start to finish. Philanthropy Manager, Ha Dinh‘s leadership and Project Officer, Huong Tran‘s curatorship ensured the vision of the donation was honoured supported by Director of Advancement Emma Silva who facilitated the project.

We are grateful to our project partners, WorkRoom4 for the display design, and NOI Pictures for the beautiful artefact photography. Thanks also to the Operations Team as we all became ‘museum experts’ together in order to realise the project, and for the guidance of parent volunteer Alexis Rodrigue-Lafleur (a genuine museum expert!) who helped us navigate policy and appropriation considerations as well as advising on proper storage and handling.

Early adopters in the Faculty (Daniel Cooper, Laura Kaufman and Nora Graham) role modeled the Cultural Collection as a valuable learning resource at UNIS Hanoi, even through Covid with our fast turnaround online collection, and now both are used by students almost daily…

And now post-Covid, we look forward to welcoming more visiting local schools to both the Cultural Collection and the Botanical Garden as we continue to leverage philanthropy in support of our School’s Vision: “Our learning community will be an inspirational role model for a better world.”

Our thanks to all who have contributed to the realisation of this extraordinary project which will serve our learners and honour our host-country culture for many decades to come.