MOU signing and kick-off ceremony of the project “Building climate resilient compassion homes in 2022 in Tra Vinh province”

On October 18^th, 2022, in Tra Vinh province, Vietnam, East Meets West Foundation (EMWF) successfully collaborated with Disaster Prevention Community Fund (QPT) and Tra Vinh Red Cross to sign the Memorandium of Understanding (MOU) and organize the kick-off ceremony of the project “Building climate resilient compassion homes (CRCH) in 2022 in Tra Vinh province”.

On August 25^th 2022,EMWF signed the agreement with Tra Vinh Red Cross for this project to support poor households affected by climate change in Tra Vinh. On September 20^th, the QPT agreed to join the collaboration with their funding to enhance the support for 20 beneficiary households with new CRCH.

The project kick-off ceremony is held at Mr. Lam Van Chon’s household, Ba Tinh hamlet, Long Hoa commune, Chau Thanh district. This is one of 20 households heavily affected by climate change in Tra Vinh. The house will be built with the total estimated cost of 80,000,000 Vietnam dong, funded and supported by EMWF, QPT, local authorities and beneficiary households. The new house is expected to complete by the end of November 2022 to help for Mr. Chon’s family stabilize their life and get out of poverty.

Mr. Chon is living with his wife and children in a bamboo-based temporary house. He goes fishing in the river to earn a living. His wife has just given birth. The family’s income is uncertain. The house is temporary but they are in no conditions to build a better one, which greatly affects to their quality of life and activities, especially in the rainy and stormy seasons.

Ms. Tran Thi Thuy Ha, EMWF Program Director shared: “Building climate resilient compassion homes and providing knowledge, skills on climate change adaptation and disaster prevention are necessary and meaningful. EMWF is pleased and looks forward to long-term cooperation with individuals and organizations on community projects.”

Since 2010, EMWF has completed about 600 climate resilient houses for 3,000 beneficiaries in more than 10 provinces and cities in Vietnam. In the face of increasingly unpredictable global climate change in the Mekong Delta in general and in Tra Vinh province in particular, it is extremely urgent to prepare safe accommodations to minimize damage to people and property. Under the framework of this CRCH project, EMWF will cooperate with related stakeholders to carry out communication activities for beneficiaries on climate resilient building process, training courses on climate change adaptation, disaster prevention and livelihoods skills. EMWF and Tra Vinh Red Cross also focus on mobilizing and calling other partners to build more compassion homes in Tra Vinh.

“One of the important targets of QPT is help disadvantaged populations to actively prevent natural disasters, live safely and adapt to climate change. Joining hands to build more compassion homes in this project is one of our priorities. We hope there will be more community organizations interested in this activities and more safe and resilient houses will contribute to keeping the community safer from natural disasters.” , shared by Ms. Le Thi Thuc, QPT Executive Director.

In Tra Vinh province, QPT implemented projects to support water tanks for hundreds of households during the historic drought in 2016. Besides, QPT built 03 clean water supply stations and pipelines to provide clean water for thousands of households in saline areas, built swimming pools in schools to prevent drowning for students. For this project, QPT is pleased to support for building 20 climate resilient compassion homes. Up to now, QPT has funded 10,575,000,000 Vietnam dong for Tra Vinh province.