originally posted on March 31, 2017

Around 5,000 children and adults from 1,250 households in Bac Binh and Ham Thuan Bac Districts in Binh Thuan, who have been suffering the impacts on health, nutrition and livelihood emerging from the severe drought that hit the region in March, will receive support from relief and development organization World Vision to address urgent WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) needs.

World Vision International is a relief and development organization working to improve the quality of life of people, especially children, who are marginalized and living in poverty.

Establishing emergency relief assistance in Vietnam in 1988 and opening an office in Hanoi in 1990, World Vision is now operating in 15 provinces across the country to support over 50 districts through long-term development programs.

In Binh Thuan, World Vision has operated 15-year area development programs in the districts of Ham Thuan Bac since 2007 and Bac Binh since 2005, focusing on nutrition, education, child protection and participation, livelihood, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

The relief worth US$150,000, which World Vision was entrusted with by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), will be implemented from June until the end of July 2016, distributing 20,000 drinking water bottles and 1,250 plastic water tanks to needy people.

Each household will receive sixteen 20-liter bottles, estimated to be a 40-day supply, and one 1,000-liter water tank.

Besides evidence of massive crop losses, there is an increase in cases of communicable diseases in children, women and the elderly, including respiratory diseases, dermatitis, diarrhea, and sore eyes, as they have resorted to using polluted water for their daily needs, according to an inter-agency assessment in Binh Thuan Province led by World Vision with the participation of the Disaster Management Center under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the National Committee for Disaster Prevention and Control in March 2016.

“Our urgent relief is to contribute to containing the diseases arising from the lack of adequate water supply for human use,” said Le Van Duong, World Vision’s National Coordinator of Humanitarian & Emergency Affairs in Vietnam.

“We’re seeking additional funding opportunities to leverage our support to people in need of food aid, hygienic water supply facilities and early economic recovery in Binh Thuan and Dak Nong Provinces,” Duong added.

Apart from the UNDP-funded aid, World Vision has undertaken the initial responses with its own resources of $80,000 to more than 5,000 thirsty children and adults in Ham Thuan Bac and Bac Binh Districts since early June 2016.

From mid-June until July, nearly 2,000 people who have faced crop failure in Bac Binh District will also benefit from the World Vision-funded support focusing on food aid and domestic water supplies.

The prolonged drought and saline intrusion as a consequence of El Niño in the Mekong Delta, south-central coastal and Central Highlands regions have led to serious groundwater depletion in water-scarce districts, according to the assessment.

Of the estimated two million people suffering acute water shortage, over one million are women and 520,000 are children.