Mrs. Huynh Thi Xuyen is an older woman living in a simple one-room house in Moc Tru, a poor village in Vinh Phu Commune. The home has no bathroom and no toilet. Her husband passed away four years ago due to a stomach related illness. Mrs. Xuyen lives with her only child, a son who suffers from mental illness. He is not able to talk and spends much of his time wandering about the village. The financial burden of the family and her son’s care is solely on the shoulders of Mrs. Xuyen. She farms and raises chickens, but it generates a meager and unstable income.
Hearts For Hue has planned to support this family with 50 chicks, a feeding and drinking system for the animals, as well as training in animal raising for Mrs. Xuyen. However, they could not raise many chickens and the animals did not develop well. The smell of chicken manure was affecting their health as their chicken pen was very small, built with temporary materials and inside the home. More work needed to be done.
With the assistance of the We Are Bamboo Company, a group of ten volunteers from Australia, the US and the UK visited Hue and spent three days at Mrs. Xuyen’s home. In heavy rains, the volunteers worked hard to build a new chicken coop. They filled it with 20 new chicks and chicken feed. The team also built a simple washroom and back patio for cleaning clothes, taking a shower and daily activities. It was upsetting to see that Mrs. Xuyen was still using thick muddy brown drinking water. So the group decided to donate a water pump to supply clean water for her. They also purchased a two burner gas stove, gas canisters, new pots, pans and enough rice to last two months.
At the end of the third day, Hearts For Hue put on a small closing ceremony. Mrs. Xuyen could not hide her teardrops. She was so grateful to the volunteers for their amazing work. This project has been an unforgettable memory for both the volunteers and Mrs. Xuyen. Hearts For Hue would like to express our deepest gratitude to the volunteers and local authorities for helping to make this project a success.
– H4H
