Marichia Simcik Arese, center, jokes around with artisans Le Bao Thi, 23, left, and Nguyen Van Phap, 23, right, at the Wounded Heart gift shop in Hue, Vietnam. Many of the artisans are deaf & mute forcing them to communicate through an homemade sign language system.
The Los Angeles Times has published a powerful multimedia package about programs in Vietnam to provide surgeries to children suffering from congenital heart defects believed caused by exposure to Agent Orange. The package starts in the print edition with a text story by Bob Pool, and then it moves to the website with a video story, slide show and dynamic map by Vietnam Reporting Fellows Katy Newton and Sean Connelley.
The text story can be accessed here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-vietnam-spiral-20110409,0,3729836.story
The multimedia features can be accessed here:
http://projects.latimes.com/vietnam/
