The class, held twice a day, is intended for patients just like Nam, who cannot make it to normal schools. It offers them a chance to forget, at least for a few hours, about the needle, the blood transfusion and the chemotherapy awaiting them upstairs in the hospital's tumour department.
In a way it offers them hope, which is exactly where it gets its name: Hope Class.
"He definitely loves coming here," said Nam's mother who was waiting outside, Bui Thi Hai. "He even asked me to bring him here this morning with his transfusion equipment."
Last month, the hospital and the Giao Duc Viet Nam (Education Viet Nam) newspaper opened the class intending to bring the joys of studying to young patients.
Professor Nguyen Thanh Liem, director of the hospital, said this was the first time the hospital had held regular classes.
"It's painful for us to see the children having to return to hospital on a regular basis," Liem said. "Many have to stay here for a very long time without being able to attend normal school. Some can't even make it to class for a single day due to their health condition."
With significant media coverage, the project has received support from companies, donors, volunteers, teachers and even celebrities and well-known figures. The hospital has set aside a 50-square-metre room for the class, accommodating about 15-20 kids per session, but that number varies based largely on their treatment schedules.
For each hour and a half class, volunteer teachers teach the kids English, singing, storytelling and drawing, along with other fun activities.
Art teacher Khuat Thi Thu Hien said she first volunteered out of curiosity, but found the kids loved her drawing classes and now makes them her priority. "When I come here, I truly feel how unfortunate they are," she said. "I feel that I'm a much luckier person and that I can help them."
To get the children in a festive spirit, she recently set them an exercise to colour in a picture of Father Christmas, and in the previous class, they learned how to make Christmas hats.
Retired English teacher Dinh Thi Kim Loan volunteers at the hospital every week. "I have a 26-year-old child who suffers from brain damage and cannot live normally, so I wholeheartedly sympathise with their situation," she said.
According to Nguyen Thanh Phuong, class co-ordinator and staff member of the hospital's Outreach Division, volunteer teachers also visit the wards to teach children who are too sick to move.
Outside the classroom, parents hang out and wait to take their kids back to either their hospital beds or outside rental rooms. Ngo Thi Hue, mother of 9-year-old Phan Manh Quan who had to drop out of fourth grade to fight leukaemia, said the hospital is like a second home.
"Whenever he's not undergoing treatment, he wants to come here," she said, but noting that Quan does not like coming to class with his transfusion equipment.
And for 12-year-old Nam, his mother said his hope now was the chance to return home to central Nghe An Province, about 300km south of Ha Noi, to enjoy Tet with his family.
VietNamNet/Viet Nam News
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