Water Ambassador - Clean Water, Healthy Life

In the border communes of Quang Tri, many young Van Kieu children and children of other ethnic minorities leave their distant villages to go to school, and a cup of clean water is not always something they can take for granted. For students who board at school, the school is almost a second home, where they eat, drink, bathe and live for days on end; when the water supply is unreliable or unfiltered, their meals and their health suffer. 

Under the plan, the project would install RO water filtration systems at Tan Lap Kindergarten and Ta Long Semi-Boarding Ethnic Minority Lower Secondary School, benefiting628 students. Ta Long has 316 students, most of them Van Kieu children from remote villages, 135 of whom board at the school; its filtration system, installed in 2019, broke down completely at the start of the 2025–2026 school year.Tan Lap lies in an area facing exceptional socio-economic hardship and has 312 children, all from ethnic minorities and all semi-boarders. The school borehole water had not been properly filtered and still contained sediment, so it could only be used for cleaning; water for cooking and drinking had to be bought in bottles, which was both costly and unsustainable.  

At Ta Long, after surveying the site, the project worked with the supplier to install and hand over an RO water filtration system with a capacity of 250 litres per hour, replacing the broken equipment. The school can now provide its own drinking and cooking water for 316 students, especially the 135 boarders, and receive operating and user instructions so it can manage and maintain the system itself. 

At Tan Lap, MSD United Way Vietnam worked with the local authorities and the supplier to install a system of the same capacity. It treats the school's existing borehole water, turning water once fit only for cleaning into water for drinking and cooking semi-boarding meals for 312 children, helping the school rely less on bottled water and cut costs. The school also received operating and user instructions so it can keep maintaining the equipment after the project ends. 

As the journey came to a close, each school had received a 250-litre-per-hour RO purified water system with automatic valves, together with a set of operating and user instructions. Gifts placed directly into the hands of teachers and students. The two systems have improved access to clean water for 628 students and their teachers. At Ta Long, the greatest difference is for the 135 boarders, who live at school for long stretches and need water constantly for drinking, cooking and daily life. At Tan Lap, money once spent on buying and transporting water can now go toward caring for and teaching the children. 

With the filtration systems in place, the project has helped improve clean water and sanitation conditions, reduce the risks of using untreated water, and enable the schools to maintain semi-boarding and serve meals more safely. Prioritising ethnic minority children in disadvantaged areas helps narrow gaps in access to education and health care.