Personal Growth & Skills Development

Every young person already holds the start of who they become.

Active Skills is a community impact organisation in Hanoi, Vietnam. We nurture young people’s personal growth and interpersonal skills, helping them discover their potential, manage themselves and their learning, find balance in life and grow into leaders who serve their communities.

Explore our programmes

Since 2018

Founded in Hanoi

ABCD

Founasset-based approach

English

for academics and skills

UK

educational foundations

About us

Who we are

Active Skills was founded in 2018 by two educators, Deirdra Hawkins and Chu Thị Vân Anh, alongside parents who believed that education should touch the heart as well as the mind. Young people here use English to think, research, debate and create, and they take real responsibility for the projects, journeys and events that make up our community.

Our role is to support, not to instruct. Drawing on Asset-Based Community Development, we begin with the strengths young people already have, and offer mentoring and consulting in self-development, self-management, learning management, relationships and life balance, for students and for their families.

Our students come from public, private, bilingual and international schools across Hanoi. What brings them together is a simple idea: learn together, play together, do together and grow together.

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We do not fill young people with answers. We help them find the questions, and the courage to act on them.

Active Skills

About our programmes

Who we are

We design each young person’s learning journey based on their strengths, their talents and the person they are becoming.

Integrated Academic Skills

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English Intensive Summer

An immersive summer programme where young people use English to communicate, present, tell stories, study and take on real-life challenges, through workshops, outdoor activities and education visits.

Youth Leadership

At Active Skills, young people do not wait to become leaders one day. They plan, organise, fundraise and serve now, with mentors beside them.

Culture Exchange & Discovery

For more than five years, our students have travelled across Vietnam, not as tourists but as guests, friends and contributors.

Community Service

Our young people work alongside people with disabilities and communities too often left out, and discover that service changes the person who serves.

Publication

When young people know their words will be read and heard, they write with more care, more courage and more truth.

Self Study

Two ways to keep growing between sessions: an online library to explore at your own pace, and small study groups guided by a mentor, both built on the self-discipline that makes learning last.

Hawkins Foundation

The Hawkins Scholarship recognises and supports young people who are growing academically, personally and interpersonally, and who are committed to leading and contributing to their communities.


Every journey begins with a conversation.

Tell us about your child: what they love, what they find hard, who they are becoming. We will listen first, then suggest where to begin.

Our stories

What matters

Growth rarely happens in a straight line. These are the moments our young people, parents and partners remember.

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