Press Release
GIFT OF FREEDOM
Vietnamese Boat People & Project 4000: 25th Anniversary Celebrations
November 11 - 21, 2004
The Vietnamese Canadian Centre will celebrate the 25th anniversary of Project 4000 with an exhibition of the photographs on Vietnamese refugees and a reunion buffet dinner, both at Plant Recreation Centre, 930 Somerset Street West (at Preston Street). The exhibition will be inaugurated at 3 p.m., Thursday November 11, and will remain open every day, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., until November 21. The dinner, with music entertainment, will be held at 6 p.m., November 20.
This will be an occasion for the reunion of Project 4000 volunteers, sponsors, and members of the Vietnamese community who have settled in the Ottawa over the last three decades and their friends. It will also provide a fitting moment to look back at the impact of this project on the cultural and socio-economic life of the National Capital Region.
Following the fall of South Vietnam in 1975, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, who either worked with or were supporters of the government of the former Republic of Vietnam, or simply did not support the newly imposed Communist regime, were put in concentration camps (officially called “Re-Education Camps”) or sent to the “New Economic Zones” in remote areas. In addition, ethnic Chinese Vietnamese were either forced to relocate or expelled from the country due to the political conflict between China and Vietnam. The flow of refugees from Vietnam reached a critical phase in late 1978 due to the refusal of some neighbouring Asian countries to admit them, then called “the Boat People” because most fled in small, leaky boats in the perilous South China Sea. Thousands were believed to have perished at sea by drowning or starvation, raped or killed by pirates. Dennis McDermott, President of the Canadian Labour Congress at the time, summarized this situation as follows: “It is crystal clear to us that the Vietnamese refugee problem has ballooned into a humanitarian crisis of global proportion and the only human way to react to such a situation is through decisive and immediate action.”
In response to the plight of these refuges, Mayor Marion Dewar of the City of Ottawa called a meeting of community organizations, church groups, and social service agencies in the city in her office in May 1979 to find out how to help them. As a result, Project 4000 was formed with the objective of campaigning for the admission of up to 4000 Boat People to the city of Ottawa through private sponsor groups. Similar community initiatives followed elsewhere in Canada.
Subsequently, the federal government under Prime Minister Joe Clark decided to accept 50,000 Indochinese refugees, mostly Vietnamese, but including also Cambodians and Laotians who fled the new Communist regimes in their countries.
Project 4000 was a historical event, not only to the Vietnamese community, but to all the citizens of Ottawa, since it shows that private citizens can work together to deal effectively with a major humanitarian crisis. It was a model to other cities and set a shining example of grassroots involvement and participation in civic initiatives for future generations.
Admission to the photograph exhibition will be free. Tickets for the dinner are $20/person, $10 for seniors (65 years old and over) and students; no ticket is required for children under 5.
For more information and reservations for the dinner (before November 18), please contact the Vietnamese Canadian Centre, 249 Rochester Street, Ottawa, ON K1R 7M9; tel. (613) 230-8282; fax (613) 230-8281; e-mail: <trungtam@istop.com>.
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For immediate release
October 18, 2004