The 'silly guy' who transforms lives of 1,700 children

He sat down to chat and bought them some daily items.

Over his two-week work trip, he sought them out every night and got them meals. Word spread among the kids about "a silly guy," and one time some 60 children trailed him to a pho restaurant.

On returning to Australia, he switched jobs to one that would station him in Vietnam.

"I came back because I wanted to make life easier for these kids than it was for me growing up," he says.

Jimmy Pham (C), 53, the founder of KOTO, and its students. Photo courtesy of KOTO

Jimmy moved abroad with their parents as an infant. He spent his first seven years moving with his parents and four siblings to Singapore, Saudi Arabia and finally Australia.

His hardworking Vietnamese mother believed education was the only path to a better life.

"Returning to Vietnam to help these kids was inevitable," he says. "It felt like fate."

On returning, he rented a house in Hanoi and housed and tutored a group of nine newspaper delivery kids.

Every three weeks, between tours, he would return to check on them.

This went on for three years until one day they told him: "We're tricking you. You're too naive and we feel guilty."

It turned out that when Pham was in Hanoi they would act like obedient kids, but after he left they would hit the streets and scam tourists.

"They thought I wouldn't help anymore after the confession," he recalls.

"But it was that moment that taught me to take things further. I was just giving them fish; now I had to teach them how to fish."

In June 1999, Jimmy poured his entire US$10,000 savings - earned over four years as a tour guide and enough to buy two houses in downtown Hanoi at the time - to open a pizza shop on Van Mieu Street to employ street children.

"It all started simple," he said. "I couldn't enroll undocumented kids in regular schools, so I created our own."

An Australian chef volunteered to teach the trade, while her husband drafted funding proposals. A year later, the project secured $30,000 from four embassies in Hanoi, enabling Jimmy to open KOTO's first school on Thuy Khue Street.

At the time, "social enterprise" was a foreign concept in Vietnam. No one understood a place that trained disadvantaged youth, sold pizzas, and sheltered the homeless.

"People said I was crying up wine and selling vinegar," Jimmy laughs. Others thought, "You must be filthy rich and bored."

In 2000, a photo of the Vietnamese-Australian tour guide surrounded by newspaper and candy-selling children graced the front page of a British newspaper. That same year, U.S. President Bill Clinton - the first American president to visit Vietnam post-war - made an unannounced stop at the tiny pizza shop near the Temple of Literature.

KOTO captured global attention.

It wasn't until 2014 that Vietnam officially recognized "social enterprise" in law. Three years later, KOTO became the first.

Former President Bill Clinton visits KOTO on Van Mieu Street, Hanoi, in November 2000. In the photo, Jimmy Pham (C, 2nd row), then 28, with the first cohort of trainees. Photo courtesy of Jimmy Pham

From that small Van Mieu shop, KOTO expanded to Ho Chi Minh City and Australia. Enrollment soared. Generations of alumni formed an unbreakable chain, with graduates spanning Vietnam, Australia, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi.

However, Covid-19 rocked KOTO to its core. No tourists, shuttered restaurants, evaporated revenue. "But I couldn't bear to tell the kids to just go home and wait out the pandemic," Jimmy recounted.

The crisis peaked when landlords evicted them for unpaid rent. Jimmy scoured Hanoi for shelter for his students. Some places accepted them in the morning, then demanded they leave by evening. No one would rent to a group of over 100 children.

"One day, at the Duc Giang intersection in Long Bien District, I stood frozen, not knowing where to go. Exhausted, tears just fell," he recalled.

Jimmy issued a call to KOTO alumni and received hundreds of responses: donations, loaned spaces, and opened doors for internships. During that time, one-third of KOTO's operating funds came from its once-destitute graduates.

The pandemic taught Jimmy a priceless lesson. For years, he'd believed in a sustainable model: training paired with self-funding restaurants and events. But Covid revealed KOTO's true strength lay not in one person's skills, but in the community he'd painstakingly built.

"That's when I fully grasped KOTO's meaning," he said.

The name KOTO - "Know One, Teach One" - was born from a conversation with Huy, the first cohort's top student, eldest brother to two children affected by Agent Orange. For three years, Jimmy ferried them to hospitals and covered their schooling. One day, after admitting the boys to Saint Paul Hospital, Huy asked: "Why are you so good to us?"

Jimmy replied: "I am not expecting repayment. Just promise, when you can, help others."

Since then, "know one, teach one" has become the life philosophy of KOTO people.

KOTO's new school in Bac Ninh Province, northern Vietnam, in October 2025. Photo by VnExpress/Dinh Huong

Nguyen Thi Thu, 45, from the second cohort, calls Jimmy her "moon" - illuminating, guiding, with extraordinary compassion.

Thu met Jimmy at 16, while selling candy to support her mother and siblings. She recalled him cycling to their home, slipping on a muddy path into a rice paddy, then tumbling again inside their chairless shack.

"I gave my spot to my sister, but he said our family's hardship warranted both of us. He enrolled us and covered monthly living costs," Thu said.

Thu now heads training at a multinational corporation; her sister is a personal chef to an ambassador in Vietnam.

Bien Thi Lien, 32, from Ha Tinh in central Vietnam, said she'll never forget Jimmy pulling her from despair's abyss. After losing her parents and brother, she fell into a months-long depression and silence. One afternoon, Jimmy sat her down: "Do you want to change your life?" His caring words awakened her.

Lien is now a sous chef in Australia.

Some of KOTO's first students are now owners of Hanoi Old Quarter restaurants, managers of premium coffee chains, executive chefs at major hotels, or running Australian eateries.

After 25 years, KOTO has empowered over 1,700 graduates. It's expanding to reach more impoverished children, especially girls in remote areas.

Each 24-month course, worth over VND250 million (US$9,500), is free. Students receive 400 hours of theory, 400 hours of practice, and conversational English. Graduates earn international certifications, securing 5-star hotel jobs at VND10-15 million monthly salaries, plus overseas opportunities.

For his contributions, Jimmy received an honorary doctorate from RMIT and numerous national and international awards.

All award money goes back to KOTO. Jimmy himself still lives in a rented home, unmarried and childless, sometimes borrowing from his mother and siblings to support KOTO's students and its new Dream School in Bac Ninh.

On Oct. 25, RMIT Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City campus will host a Guinness World Records attempt to create the largest number 25 using 600 loaves of bread, raising funds for KOTO’s Dream School.

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