Vietnam
For more than six decades, we've been working with communities in Vietnam to overcome poverty. In particular, we work with rural and ethnic minority families.
Too many people in Vietnam still don't have proper bathrooms to use. With our Community-Led Total Sanitation model, thousands of people build and begin to use sanitary toilets each year.
We're also focused on improving access to clean water. For example, construction teams learn to build low-cost water filters, which they build and install in homes and schools.
When it comes to schools, we also focus on infrastructure upgrades. That could mean new bathrooms, improved libraries, or cleaner stoves in kitchens. And we use schools as hubs to share valuable information with students and their families. We host workshops on topics ranging from preventing human trafficking to proper hand washing.
We're proud to provide the information and resources that our neighbors need to overcome the challenges they face.
Latest Updates
Students are taking the lead on sharing information to prevent human trafficking in Vietnam
Human trafficking is a risk in rural Vietnam, just like it is in many parts of southeast Asia. Criminal networks are strong and pervasive, as are poverty and vulnerability. With support from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, our team in Vietnam partners with ethnic minority communities in northern Vietnam. We focus on a myriad of challenges, especially ones that …
New toilets for 800 students in Vietnam
Van Thi Tan is a 15-year-old ninth grader at Phuc Than Secondary School in Vietnam. This is her fourth year at the school, but the first time that she and her fellow students have had clean, sanitary bathrooms to use. For years, Tan and the 800 other students shared a single toilet room. It was old, it was dirty, and …
A business owner helps reduce plastic bag use in her community in Vietnam
“Using plastic bags is so convenient!” “Everyone uses plastic, so if I change, it’s nothing.” “Why would I stop using plastic bags?” These and many similar comments are ones that my colleague Dung and I usually receive when we ask people’s opinions about reducing their use of single use plastics, especially plastic bags. The convenience of using plastics bags and …