“It’s always cheerful to see children’s smiles while they are drinking clean water. Their smiles say it all and make us feel that it’s worth the effort. However, we found that not only schools but also families need clear water in Vinh Long Province. This is because most of the time children and their families stay at home and still use river water in their daily lives. So, we began to investigate water to assess the effectiveness of the program implementation.”
- Message from the social worker in TFCF Vietnam Branch
Finding the root of the problem
In July 2019, we spent three days visiting the cooperation area ‘’ Dong Phu’’, families and relevant government units to understand the government's planning and residents' expectation. After visiting 2 water factories and 26 families, we got some information as follows:
Dong Phu has 11 hamlets, but only 2 water factories are available for 5 hamlets. The factories get water from the ground or rivers and supply water to the resident’s houses after purifying the water. One water factory was built 25 years ago; however, there are lots of broken equipment which is difficult to deliver water.Another water factory was built in 2017 and the factory is still expanding its water purifier system to benefit more areas.
We visited Dong Phu families in July 2019. There were 26 families with 95 residents, including 47 children and 48 adults. After visiting, we found 26 families used river water in daily lives, includes cooking. Most of them just pumped the water from the river, filled the bucket and used the water until the alum sank to the bottom. However, only 2 families have powders to purify water to make it cleaner.
Next challenge of the project
Through the survey, we found they have some diseases caused by water, like gastrointestinal disease (17.9%)skin diseases(18.9%) and kidney disease(4.2%)…etc. Even families know they need to use clean water due to the pollution in the river, they didn’t have money to connect the tap water.
After the survey, we think we need to help more poor families connect the tap water and have clean water in daily life to stay away from diseases. We sincerely hope that there will be more smiles on their faces. Therefore, your ongoing support will give them a change to have a better and healthy life.
Thank you for being with us! Wish you all the best!
With gratitude,
Wen Hung
Links:
“Water tastes sweet! Now I love to drink water!” It’s a message told by a little boy who I met at school visit last time. I was so glad to know that students began to drink water more, and it means that the health of children is improving through changing health behaviors.
We will continue to focus our efforts on raising health consciousness of clean water in Vietnam. We not only educate students in school about the importance of clean water, but deliver this key message to their families in the communities. We found some students started to fill up bottles and bring clean water back for their families which means their parents started to know that they need clean water. We have no solution for communities yet, so we do encourage students to do so whenever school opens.
The existing Water Purifier System in school is not theessential problem-solving action to all families, however, it’s the first step we are going to do for their families by changing health behaviors.”
- Message from the representative of TFCF Vietnam Branch
Next challenge of the project
It’s been a year that we delivered clean water to students through Water Purifier System in two schools in Vinh Long Province. We found the difficulties and problem of system maintenance. We do care about this issue and are going to discuss with schools about how to ensure the water quality of Water Purifier System after maintenance actions done. Resources are limited, but we will keep resolving the critical issues and carry on the goal of our project to bring clean water to children in schools.
Thank you for being with us! Wish you all the best!
With gratitude,
Wen Hung
Links:
“How much do you understand about water in Vietnam? Would you insist on receiving clean water if you are living in poor circumstances? Raising public health consciousness of clean water is the topic we continue focusing on, and there is no doubt that International NGOs have to work with government to initiate advocacy. Therefore, people can have awareness and knowledge about clean water. However, the rapid economic development is accompanied by pollution increases which affect the quality of water supply in the country. We know that the Water Purifier System is not theessential problem-solving action, but it’s one of doable action we can help for needy children at school. We will continue to work with the local government to provide assistance for more needy households in communities.”
- Message from the representative of TFCF Vietnam Branch
Water supply and sanitation
Water is one of the most important resources in the world, especially accessing clean water for the sustainable socio-economic development in the rural areas of Vietnam. Making home water drinkable is a big challenge to Provincial and local governments, and we also endeavor to help needy families access to potable water and sanitation in Vinh Long Province. As we know that there are families with or without tap water currently, and our team has paid attention to assist them and increase the number of households with tap water. We are looking forward to receiving your support and donations to help more children and households regarding safe water supply and sanitation.
Wish you all the best!
With gratitude,
Wen Hung
Links:
“Throw back to last year when we considered the water issue for children in Vietnam and we decided to propose this project as soon as we could. There were simply not enough economic and technical resources around TFCF Vietnam, and we were grateful to bring this project to GlobalGiving and received your support and donations. Vinh Long Province is located in the Mekong Delta of southern Vietnam and many livelihoods in the basin depend on the river forfood and livelihoods locally due to the convenience to them. Definitely, it is a serious issue because the river water is polluted and has damaged local people's health and daily life.
We hope to bring more welfare benefits for needy children in communities. Therefore, we have met with Vinh Long Union Friendship Organization (Vinh Long UFO) to discuss and identify community needs through comprehensive review of Water System. We are looking forward to seeing more opportunities to collaborate with NGOs and local government in Vietnam.”
- Message from the representative of TFCF Vietnam Branch
What can we do more?
According to the existing resources and ability on hands, it seems that we are restricted and limited the scope of our services currently. With your support, we consider what we can do more for needy children together with you. We thank you for your assistance, and we would love to share more information and community needs with you in the future. I also want to take this time to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I'm offering these early wishes here and going to prepare Christmas events for our children soon in TFCF Vietnam. See you next year!
With the season’s greeting,
Wen Hung
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“Access to safe water is a fundamental human need and, therefore, a basic human right. A water supply is an essential requirement for people and everyone needs water for drinking, cooking, and washing. Polluted water may not only look dirty, but contains bacteria and viruses that can cause illness or even death. Most of us are facing Vietnam's water challenges and we are eagerly looking forward to changing the water condition at our school. We are grateful for the support we have received from you through GlobalGiving project. Most of children said that water tastes sweet at school and we are happy to meet their basic need and right. We thank you for your protection and care over our children in Vietnam.”
- Message from a school affairs administrative staff at An Binh Secondary School
Safe Drinking Water is Essential
Thank you for your constant encouragement. We are pleased to propose our project to offer our services for schoolchildren in Vietnam. However, the scope of services is limited and we need more donation and support from the public in order to move forward and benefit more children. As we all know water is obviously essential for everyone and we can't get away from using water on a daily basis, for a number of different purposes. We hope to have a healthy future environment to children in Vietnam and protect their right to access to safe drinking water as essential.
With gratitude,
Wen Hung
Links:
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