The UNIS Cultural Collection is an extraordinary learning resource for our students and community, made possible through philanthropy. This unique gift has created the UNIS Cultural Collection – an educational resource designed to inspire learning through the lens of Vietnam’s rich cultural heritage.
Parent Passion Creates World Class Learning Resource
A first-of-its-kind, the UNIS Cultural Collection is a learning resource made up of 204 Vietnamese cultural and historic artefacts from 13 different Ethnic Minority groups, donated to the School by UNIS Hanoi parent, Ms Nhung Nguyen and her business partner, Dr Mark Rapoport from the Hanoi gallery, 54 Traditions.
Explaining her philanthropic motivation, Ms Nhung said, “When my son, Bao, started at UNIS Hanoi, I felt that, as a UN school, UNIS Hanoi was the perfect place for both Vietnamese and expatriate people to learn about Vietnamese culture.
“As lifelong collectors of Vietnamese cultural artefacts, it was a delight for Mark and I to donate this collection to UNIS Hanoi and we were pleased when fellow parents, Lam and Huyen supported our vision by providing the finances to create the wonderful exhibition space we now have. It’s our hope that other Vietnamese parents will join our efforts by making contributions big or small to the collection, for the benefit of the UNIS Hanoi community and beyond.”
And despite the School campus closing to students as the project was launched last April, our creative faculty have been able to use the online Cultural Collection resource that the School launched 6 months ahead of schedule in order to support Distance Learning.
The online Cultural Collection features in-depth factsheets about every item, beautiful photography to capture the exquisite details, and for nearly all, there is also a video created by one of our Grade 7 experts making the information accessible to our younger learners.
And this year, a Middle and High School student design team are now planning intentional connections between the UNIS Cultural Collection and our new UNIS Botanical Garden, which is being designed to celebrate indigenous Vietnamese plants and make connections to Vietnamese literature and sculpture.
The Cultural Collection has not only created an on-site mini-museum and learning resource, it is sparking our students creativity and connection to Vietnamese culture across the community with exciting projects that are truly UNiquely UNIS.
April 19, 2021 marked the official launch of UNIS Cultural Collection – an extraordinary learning resource made possible through philanthropy. We are extremely grateful for the generous donations from Ms Nhung Nguyen and Dr Mark Rapoport, founders of the 54 Traditions Gallery in Hanoi, with their gift of 204 artefacts and Mr Lam-Ms Huyen Family with their support in the installation of this beautiful exhibition.
This founding collection of 204 Vietnamese cultural and historic artefacts from 13 of the country’s 54 ethnic groups is an educational collection designed to inspire learning through the lens of Vietnam’s rich cultural heritage.
The UNIS Cultural Collection online resource has been developed over the summer 2021 as a special and invaluable learning resource, not only for our students during Distance Learning, but for an entire community and one which we are confident will have global reach.
Through the collection, curation and meaningful exhibition of the artefacts, the UNIS Cultural Collection is designed to support both curriculum learning and community education.
The UNIS Cultural Collection is situated in the Ly Thai To Learning Centre (Building B8B). Students and UNIS community members can visit freely (according to campus access regulation with respect to Covid management.)
Please browse our online collection, which is categorised into the following groups:
