International Vietnamese Youth Conference
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Len Duong International Vietnamese Youth Network organizes a multi-day International Vietnamese Youth Conference every 2 years, drawing Vietnamese youths from all over the world to gather and discuss topics relating to the Vietnamese youth and to network. These conference draw anywhere from 400-600 youths from more than 15 countries. With the Vietnamese spelling of the International Vietnamese Youth Conference as Đại Hội Thanh Niên Sinh Viên Việt Nam Thế Giới (World Vietnamese Student Youth Conference), this conference has simply been abbreviated and nicknamed DH (conf.) followed by the conference number, such as DH3 for the third conference.
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[edit] Politics
The conferences, like the banned[1] Len Duong network, are organised by forces staunchly loyal[2] to the former Axis (see Empire of Vietnam), French (See First Indochina War), and US backed South Vietnamese regime. Some of the conference activities are based around their far right politics, but much of it simply about the needs and concerns of Vietnamese youth living in other countries, or just having fun and making friends[3]. Recent conferences have moved more to the left and towards reconciliation, and have been attended by international students from Vietnam studying overseas.
[edit] History
[edit] Melbourne in 1999
The first conference was organized by Federal Vietnamese Students Association of Australia in January, 1999 in Melbourne, Australia. It is primarily through this conference that the ideas of an international network and recurring conference were formally introduced and later transformed into the Lenduong organization as it is today.[4]
[edit] Paris in 2001
The second conference was held in Paris, France in the summer of 2001.
[edit] San Diego in 2003
The Third International Vietnamese Youth Conference was held in San Diego, USA.[5] It was co-hosted by the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California as well as the Phan Boi Chau Youth Network. The event started with an Opening Ceremony in Westminster, California on July 11, 2003, was followed by the conference workshops and tracks at the University of San Diego from July 12th - 13th, followed by a three day camp at William Heise Park near San Diego and concluded with a press conference in Westminster, California on July 16. With almost 600 attendees from 16 different countries, DH3 continues to hold the record for being the largest conference in this series.
[edit] Sydney in 2005
With DH4, the fourth conference returned to its original country Australia, and about 450 youths gathered for five days at the Bankstown Town Hall in the suburbs of Sydney from December 27, 2005 to January 1, 2006.[6] This conference marked the first conference without a camp, although it included a one-day Amazing Race style activity around Sydney as a break from conference workshops.
The theme of the conference was "Vietnamese Youths: Eliminating Barriers, Overcoming Challenges" [7] ("Tuổi Trẻ Việt Nam: Xoá Ngăn Cách - Vượt Thử Thách"[8] in Vietnamese). In this spirit it included some unusually reconciliatory activities, such as a debate, in the form of a fictional legal trial, concerning what punishment should be given to a communist official who accidentally killed a protester supporting the old South Vietnamese regime.
[edit] Kuala Lumpur in 2007
The Fifth International Vietnamese Youth Conference will take place December 28, 2007 to December 30, 2007 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.[9]
At the end of the 4th conference in Sydney it was announced, to everyone's surprise, that the 5th conference would be somewhere unspecified in South East Asia in June, 2007. This led to much speculation about the conference location, and the incorrect rumour that it would be in Thailand. It could not be organised in time for June, and the conference venue and location were not announced until the end of March, 2007.
