The Daily Bruin published a three-part series on a UCLA and UC Irvine student service group that travels to Vietnam each year to carry out educational and medical missions.
The on-site reporting was made possible by the Bridget O’Brien Scholarship Foundation, now in its fourth year of funding student journalism at UCLA with global reach and local consequence.
This year’s recipients, Sean Greene and Morgan Glier, spent 12 days in Vietnam with the student group Medical, Educational Missions and Outreach, to tell the stories of the volunteers and those they help.
They conducted many interviews in Vietnamese that were translated into English by paid professionals. In line with cultural practices, the reporters accepted meals provided by sources.
Some Vietnamese names and words had to be simplified and so appear without certain accent marks.
The stories and photos are online at vietnam.dailybruin.com along with multimedia content from the reporters’ travels in Vietnam.
Sean Greene and Morgan Glier’s reporting for Heart of the Problem was made possible by the Bridget O’Brien Scholarship Foundation. The nonprofit organization was established in 2007 in memory of the late 26-year-old O’Brien, a photojournalist and former photographer, writer and editor at the Daily Bruin.
While at UCLA, O’Brien planned and completed a reporting trip to Nicaragua. Her images and stories were published in the Daily Bruin and USA Today. Each year, the scholarship funds a reporting trip for a team of Daily Bruin reporters. To find out more about the foundation and to make donations, please visit rememberingbridget.com