PR in Vietnam

Contributed by Tristan Dwyer - KOTO

Since graduating I have undertaken two roles,

• firstly as Media and Policy Adviser to the Member for Southern Metropolitan Region in the Parliament of Victoria, and
• secondly my current role as PR Manager for KOTO (Know One, Teach One), a Vietnamese-based hospitality training centre for street and disadvantaged youth.

I have moved to Hanoi, Vietnam, for my current role, to oversee PR for a charity which takes 16-22 year olds who are living on the streets, in juvenile detention, in orphanages, or who have been through traumatic experiences, and trains them for two years in hospitality. The course includes front-of-house and kitchen training, as well as English and a range of other life skills. There is a 100% job placement rate in reputable restaurants and hotels throughout the world. KOTO has 100 trainees at a time and has been operating for ten years.

It is a well-known charity in Hanoi, but my role is to learn about the organisation so that I can be part of a team to establish a new KOTO in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam, later in the year. KOTO is funded through donations and sponsorships of individual trainees, as well as through profit made in the restaurant which is staffed by trainees and graduates. KOTO is an unknown organisation in HCMC and it will be my job to ensure there is name recognition and an understanding of what KOTO does, among both the expatriate and local communities in HCMC.

To be good at this role, you must be able to deal successfully with a wide range of people – embassy staff, international media, Vietnamese media, along with the local and multinational business communities.

My advice on the best way to get a job is two-fold:

• get help from people you know, and
• do things that make you stand out from your peers.

Both of my jobs have come from telling people I knew that I was looking for a job - particularly people I had met through my association with the PR Institute of Australia (PRIA) while at uni. And I was told I got both jobs because I have some interesting things on my resume - work experience at Alzheimer’s Society, London and Edelman PR, Washington DC; and involvement in Deakin PR and Commerce societies, and the PRIA students’ committee.

Once you have an understanding of the basics of PR - what your key messages are and who you need to tell them to - your skills can lead you to an amazing range of situations and places. Almost every organisation has some form of PR, so I encourage you to look broadly to see where the opportunities lie.