Habitat for Humanity International
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : n************g@h************m.o*g
Mission Statement
Seeking to put God’s love into action, Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities and hope.
About This Cause
Habitat for Humanity began operations in Vietnam in 2001. We partner with vulnerable and marginalized families and communities in building better lives and homes as well as managing economic, social, and environmental stresses and shocks through a holistic, people-centered approach. To date, we have worked with 80,000 low-income families or 328,000 people to achieve strength, stability and self-reliance through shelter. As a housing-focused organization, we deliver inclusive interventions that are affordable, sustainable, customized to contextual needs, and integrated into the overall urban and rural settings. Habitat’s programs in Vietnam focus on water, sanitation and hygiene or WASH; disaster risk reduction and response; and housing microfinance. Habitat has a national team of experts and leaders with experience in housing, land tenure, house planning, urbanization, housing policies, project management, construction, WASH, and disaster risk reduction and response. Research tells us that safe, adequate and affordable housing leads to gains in health, education and economic opportunity, and these, in turn, promote broader reductions in inequality while building resilience against disasters and economic crises. A driver or catalyst for 13 of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals, housing will be particularly important in a post-pandemic world as an essential component of any comprehensive approach to recovery and development in emerging economies, including Vietnam’s. Habitat’s programs bring changes in the living conditions, productivity, education, and health of families and individuals. As Vietnam sets its sights on achieving middle-income status by 2025, Habitat will continue to play a catalytic role in meeting the need for housing that is a basic right under Vietnam’s constitution. We facilitate multi-sector alliances between the Vietnam government, institutional donors, multinational and local corporates, and nongovernmental organizations. Our partners include the U.K.’s Department for International Development (since replaced by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office), Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Korea International Cooperation Agency, the Citi Foundation, Jersey Overseas Aid, the Hong Kong government and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. We also work with Samsung Electronics, Samsung C&T, POSCO, LG, P&G, Pfizer and the GE Foundation, as well as local companies such as SonKim Land and NS BlueScope Vietnam. WATER, SANITATION AND HYGIENE In a 2018 voluntary national review of the SDGs, Vietnam cited achievements such as 93.4% of households had access to clean water sources while 83.3% of the households were using sanitary latrines. However, compared to the Kinh/Hoa majority, just over 70% of ethnic minority households had access to clean water while only 27.2% of them had access to hygienic latrines in 2016. The gaps were highlighted in a joint report between the Vietnam government and the United Nations Development Programme. Access to safe water remains a public priority as the Vietnam government has key policies to implement Sustainable Development Goal 6. The government’s development plan for rural areas and poverty reduction are particularly focused on meeting the water needs of the poor, the ethnic minorities and those living in remote areas. In Vietnam, Habitat’s WASH programs with inclusive solutions and partnerships are driven by the communities’ needs. We also help people living with disabilities, who make up 7% of the country’s population, and vulnerable groups to increase their access to sustainable, safe water supply. With support from Pfizer and other donors, Habitat Vietnam has partnered with 29 families who have members with disabilities to improve accessibility to their homes and sanitation facilities. Support for Habitat’s WASH programs came from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Techtronic Industries Co. Ltd, ECK Foundation, P&G and Dow. Habitat Vietnam has provided families with household water tanks and water pipelines. In schools, we have built communal water points including filtration systems as well as community toilets and private space in female latrines for menstrual hygiene management. Habitat promotes behavioral change through a community-based participatory approach that includes activities to raise awareness of water, sanitation and hygiene together with handwashing practices. In Thai Nguyen and Hoa Binh provinces, Habitat has trained ethnic minorities to manage gravity-fed water systems as a sustainable solution. DISASTER RISK REDUCTION AND RESPONSE Vietnam is ranked 13th among the countries most affected by extreme climate events between 2000 and 2019, according to environmental think-tank Germanwatch. The country’s overall development is threatened by various hazards, based on a joint report by the United Nations Development Programme in 2020. Each year, five to six typhoons hit Vietnam’s coastlines while northern parts of the country are prone to landslides and flash floods during heavy rains and storms. Disasters caused Vietnam’s annual gross domestic product growth to fall 1.5% every year, the government said. Economic losses due to disasters are seen to increase with infrastructure and people being increasingly concentrated in vulnerable areas such as flood-plains and coastal areas. The first Habitat disaster response project in Vietnam was launched in Danang province in 2001, the year that we started working in the country. Since then, we have been responding to disasters such as typhoons, storms, droughts and flooding almost annually in the south, central and north. To date, Habitat Vietnam has supported 26,000 families affected by disasters to rebuild their homes and lives. We draw upon Habitat’s larger Pathways to Permanence approach to reducing the vulnerability of disaster-affected families, using a holistic program that puts them on a path to durable, permanent shelter solutions — an issue of particular importance given the tendency for affected families with shelter needs to engage in self-recovery and owner-driven reconstruction after disasters. In the aftermath of a disaster, Habitat Vietnam typically distributes nonfood items including water, sanitation and hygiene kits containing items such as water filters, chloramine-B tablets for disinfecting water, and buckets. Local communities also receive leaflets on the use of these items. Through emergency shelter kits, we help typhoon or flood-affected families to have a safe place to stay while moving toward recovery. Families and masons also receive training in building or repairing homes to withstand future disasters. Together with local authorities and communities, we developed safer techniques for building back safer that were shared with families and masons via videos and booklets and/or guidelines. Local community members received training in building more disaster-resilient homes, thus improving their livelihood options. Habitat also encourages disaster-affected villages to eliminate the use of asbestos-containing materials through information, education, and communication materials and community-based demonstrations on safe and affordable alternatives such as corrugated iron roofing sheets. HOUSING MICROFINANCE In its 2018 voluntary national review of the Sustainable Development Goals, Vietnam noted there was rapid improvement in housing given the country’s strong urban development. Despite government support and subsidies, poor and near-poor households with limited earnings still lack access to safe and affordable housing. Many low-income Vietnamese families have members engaging in informal work and are unable to qualify for loans from commercial banks. Their limited options include dipping into their meager savings or taking out collateral loans with high interest rates. Mass organizations such as the Women’s Unions at the national and provincial levels have a poverty reduction mandate and offer micro-loans at interest rates that low-income families could afford. As such, Habitat Vietnam partners with these mass organizations to integrate housing microfinance services into project design, particularly in the rural areas. Such a housing finance model helps to ensure project sustainability and is supported by Habitat Vietnam’s donors such as Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Korea International Cooperation Agency, Citi Foundation and Samsung C&T. Habitat partnered with the Kien Giang Women’s Union, a provincial branch of the Vietnam Women’s Union, in its first housing, and water and sanitation micro-credit project in Vietnam. Between 2005 and 2012, 4,359 families in seven districts in Kien Giang took out loans for renovating homes and building water and sanitation facilities with Habitat providing construction technical assistance. After Habitat Vietnam closed its Kien Giang office in 2013, the provincial women’s union has continued to manage the project with minimal monitoring and support from Habitat. Habitat Vietnam is supported by Habitat for Humanity International, an acclaimed global development organization that partners with a full range of stakeholders in more than 70 countries, implementing appropriate solutions for more than 5 million people per year in urban, peri-urban, and rural areas. Habitat advocates for policies that bring adequate housing within reach for the estimated 1.6 billion people worldwide who currently lack decent shelter, and we help make housing market systems more responsive to their needs. Habitat Vietnam also has access to expert support in the Asia Pacific Office of Habitat’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter (TCIS), which applies market systems development approaches to help fill the void in affordable and quality housing. works with the private sector to pilot new products and approach related to housing finance and construction materials, services, and practices, and scales the best of those innovations.