Pacific Partnership 2016 held an English conversation community relations event for Vietnamese children at Skyline School July 19.

The event included reading with the children, face painting and games such as soccer, volleyball and basketball.

"Today is an English conversation community relations event with elementary and kindergarten students at the school," said Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Jessica McCullough, serving aboard hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19). "We are here interacting with the kids and helping them with their English conversational skills. I really enjoy doing these types of things because it gets you outside of your regular work, and gets to show these kids at a young age what other people, other cultures, are like."

Pacific Partnership includes many partner nations, which provides the opportunity to learn and grow from interactions with different peoples and cultures.

"It's a good chance for our students to learn about the [U.S. Navy], American culture and language," said Van Hanh Nguyen, vice director of Skyline School. "I think they enjoy that, and lessons from books [cannot compare to an] activity like today's."

Cmdr. Karl Drummond, a dentist from the British Royal Navy, agrees with the importance of cultural exchange.

"Pacific Partnership is all about coming to different countries and building those relationships, and I think this is exactly what we need to be doing," said Drummond. "You can see by the smiles on their faces how much it means to [the children]."

Nguyen believes Pacific Partnership will have a lasting impact on the lives of the children from the school, and also with Da Nang as a whole.

"This is an open world today, we need to get to know each other and the other cultures so that we can not only broaden our minds, but also our way of thinking so it is easier to integrate in this world," said Nguyen. "It will help bridge our gap to the world, for the other countries to know about Da Nang and our people and our culture."

Mercy is joined in Da Nang by tank landing ship JS Shimokita (LST 4002) and Vietnam People's Navy ship Khanh Hoa. After Vietnam, Mercy will conduct mission stops in Malaysia and Indonesia, and Shimokita will visit Palau.

Pacific Partnership 2016 is focused on enhancing relationships and multinational-interoperability through knowledge exchange and cooperative training, ensuring partner nations are prepared to collectively and effectively respond when disaster strikes.

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For more information on Pacific Partnership 2016, visit http://www.facebook.com/pacificpartnership and @PacificPartner.

For more news from Commander, Task Force 73, visit http://www.navy.mil/.