A program designed to give allied health students at Charles Sturt University (CSU) experience in a Vietnamese orphanage for children with disabilities will be recognised for its outstanding contribution to quality of student learning.

 The CSU School of Community Health's Overseas Workplace Learning Vietnam Program will receive the 2014 Vice-Chancellors Award for Programs that Enhance Learning during a ceremony at CSU in Wagga Wagga on Monday 8 September.

Run since 2001, the program is coordinated by Associate Professor in Occupational Therapy Michael Curtin, lecturer in podiatry Ms Kristy Robson, and lecturer in physiotherapy Ms Kay Skinner.

It gives up to 12 occupational therapy, physiotherapy, podiatry and speech pathology students from the University's School of Community Health in Albury-Wodonga and Orange the chance to complete one of their final year work placements in a Vietnamese orphanage for children with disabilities.

The students were initially placed in the Thị Nghè Orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City – home to more than 300 children with disabilities. The program is now focussed on Buddhist run orphanage Chùa Kỳ Quang, home to about 200 children and adults - many of whom have disabilities.  

In 2008, the CSU program began working with Yooralla, a Melbourne-based organisation supporting people with disabilities to live independently.

Associate Professor Curtin said, "Our Vietnamese program is an intensive learning experience for students and one where they are pushed out of their comfort zones".

"The program gives them a chance to expand their skills in ways which would not be possible in a placement in Australia," she said.

"We aim to prepare our students to work as health professionals in diverse cultural and linguistic communities and across health disciplines.

"From the start, we set out to establish a collaborative and sustainable relationship with the orphanages and, more than a decade down the track, I believe we have achieved this goal."

This is not the first award for the program as it was granted a Carrick Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning in 2007.

The program has also become a model for two other international placements for allied health students including Bangladesh in 2011 and Nepal in 2013.

The Vice-Chancellor's Awards are presented annually in several categories to recognise staff excellence in innovation, sustainability, leadership, research and teaching. The 2014 ceremony will be held from 1pm to 3pm on Monday 8 September at Joyes Hall, building 209, near car park 16, Jingellic Place, CSU in Wagga Wagga.

The School of Community Health's Overseas Workplace-learning Vietnam Program is supported by CSU Global, an initiative to promote international study experiences across the University.