Meet our Home Partners “Our family now has a better environment and place for the proper learning of the 3 children.” Mrs. Loan and her husband, as the same with many poor households in My Tho City, were doing the best they could with their low wages for their family; however, the house was in a grim state. They spent so much time worrying about the housing condition and bothered by the regular minor fixing that they did not have any time left to help their 3 children with heir educations. Things get worst during the rainy season. The water leaked-in everywhere from the roof, as the entire house would flood and meant that the children had no where dry to sleep and they spent the night helping their parents to bail out water. Ms. Loan blames these extra expenses on temporary home repairs from preventing them from being able to spend more money for their children’s education. The family then learned about a housing micro-credit loan offered by Habitat for Humanity Vietnam, applied and were awarded a 6.8 million VND loan.  This loan coupled with the additional financial and volunteer support from Conoco Phillips, meant that the family was able to renovate the leaky roof frame, put in new corrugated iron sheets and heighten the flooring of the home to prevent flooding. Now, the family is enjoying the upgraded house, safe and decent. This home means that the children now have their own corner for learning and are able to sit anywhere on the tiled floor to practice reading, as there is no more flooding. Moreover, the entire family can now sleep well at night.  Most importantly for Mrs. Loan, the children say that they can now happily bring their friends home, a thing that they unwillingly to do before. Ms. Loan now has time to concentrate on earning a living for her family and envisions “a bright future for her children.”          After photo: Ms. Loan with her daughter standing in front of their newly upgraded house      Mrs. Phuoc showed Quynh, Habitat staff on rice growth. “I feel that I am so lucky and I wish to have money to help other poor people.”  When a severe storm in 2006 raged through My Phong Commune in Tien Giang Province, a 61 year old Mr. Nguyen clung to the teetering pillar of his home in hopes of saving it from collapse and told his 58 year old wife to pack all of their clothes in a bag and leave the home for her safety.  During the long 25 minutes and thereafter, Mr. Nguyen’s only thoughts were on the 6 million VND that his family would have received from the government if his home were to collapse and how this amount would be insufficient to build a new safe home.  Thus, the couple had to spend all the money that they could gather to create temporary patches for the damaged homes. Mr. and Mrs. Nguyen had tried to work hard their entire lives to support themselves and their 3 children; however, low paying manual labor jobs and constant worries about the unsafe, poor cottage spiraled the family into poverty.  Mr. Nguyen spent his days laboring on his tropical fruit trees, but so much money was needed to upkeep the repairs on the poorly constructed home. Then in March 2008, Habitat for Humanity Vietnam through the partnership of the Tien Giang Fatherland Front and a donation from The Hung Vuong Company brought a team of volunteers from New Zealand to build a new ‘Love Home’ for the Nguyen family.  With their 3 million VND contribution and many days of working next to the New Zealand volunteers, the Nguyen family saw their new, dependable home being built before their eyes.  Mr. Nguyen is still humbly grateful and estimates a savings of 4-5 million VND due to the volunteers’ work. 6 months later, the Nguyen family is thriving with a decent, safe home where they can live and work.  With the savings gained from not having to repair the home, Mr. Nguyen was able to concentrate on growing his business through purchasing 20 new jackfruit trees, in addition to improving the care for his existing 60 coconut trees.  Mrs. Nguyen was able to start a new business of creating handy crafts simply because she has now had space for so in the new home.  The couple no longer wakes up in the night from a leaky roof or worries about the house collapsing on top of them. Simply stated by Mr. Nguyen, “Our family is happier.” The Nguyen family still keeps in contact with many of the New Zealand volunteers and one New Zealand couple will take a trip to Vietnam to visit them again next year. But most importantly, Mr. Nguyen in regards to income generation is that he wishes “to have money to help other poor people.”