History

In 2018, East Meets West celebrated 30 years of operations in Vietnam and received the Vietnamese Government’s prestigious Friendship Order Service Award in recognition for helping to enhance the quality of life for Vietnamese people. Thrive Networks also partnered with JSI Health to implement the USAID-financed Building Healthy Cities program in Danang, Vietnam.

East Meets West continues to build its programs with a gender and socially inclusive lens to ensure no one is left behind in essential services such as water, hygiene, and sanitation, and building resilient communities and healthy cities.

With a focus on collaborative partnerships, innovative financing schemes, and technology, East Meets West expanded to Cambodia and Laos and changed its name in the United States to Thrive Networks. Funders such as the Australian Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade, the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation financed East Meets West’s output-based aid approach to programs in education, deworming, and water, sanitation, and hygiene.

East Meets West developed programs in education and health programs such as its SPELL scholarships, Operation Healthy Heart pediatric cardiac care, and Breath of Life newborn care programs, and pioneered new innovative financing and service delivery approaches in water, hygiene and sanitation. Several institutional donors started their support of East Meets West, including the World Bank (education), Ford Foundation (programs for people with disabilities), and USAID (early childhood development and school construction).

East Meets West was founded by Le Ly Hayslip, who described her life during the Vietnam War in the book “When Heaven and Earth Changed Places,” which became the basis for Oliver Stone’s film “Heaven and Earth.” In the first 10 years, East Meets West was known for its grassroots programs in Vietnam in clean water, health, and education.