World Vision Donates Water to Drought Victims in Binh Thuan Province

Some 5,000 children and adults in Bac Binh and Ham Thuan Bac districts, afflicted by the severe drought in Binh Thuan Province, will receive support from World Vision. The organization will address the urgent water, sanitation and hygiene needs in these areas. The relief package worth $150,000, entrusted to World Vision by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), will be distributed from June until the end of July 2016, offering 20,000 bottles of drinking water and 1,250 plastic water tanks to the needy. Each family will receive sixteen 20l  bottles, estimated to be a 40-day supply, and one 1,000-liter water tank. “Our immediate aim is to contribute to containing the diseases arising from the lack of adequate water supply for human use,” Le Van Duong, World Vision’s National Coordinator of Humanitarian & Emergency Affairs in Vietnam, said. “We’re seeking additional funding opportunities to leverage our support for people in need of food aid, hygienic water supply facilities and early economic recovery in the Binh Thuan and Dak Nong provinces,” Duong said. Previously, World Vision was part of the initial response, using its own resources of $80,000, assisting more than 5,000 residents in the Ham Thuan Bac and Bac Binh districts since early June 2016. From mid-June until July, World Vision will also provide food aid and domestic water supplies to nearly 2,000 people who have faced crop failures in Bac Binh District. The prolonged drought and saline intrusion as a consequence of El Nino in the Mekong Delta, South Central Coastal and Central Highland regions has led to serious groundwater depletion in water-scarce districts. Some two million people are suffering an acute water shortage, including over 1 million women and 520,000 children, according to World Vision. (Vietnam News June 13)