Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Follow up - Two of Our Families & Their Home Situations



This mother needs medicine for her heart condition
and funds for materials to build a temporary shelter


The typhoon season, the heavy autumnal and winter rains and the worst of the winter's cold are now over.

Children's Education Foundation - Vietnam concentrates on providing the support and the required funds needed for girls from very poor families to receive an education. Sometimes we find that they can't do their homework or get the necessary support at home if they don't have help with other aspects, such as housing and medical care. We try to find others to help us with these costs as we don't have funds to do these things ourselves. That is one of the reason I share these stories in case anyone reading them can offer some help.

One family I have talked about - the family with straw mat walls on an island near Hoi An now have a new home and the final stages of construction are about to take place - the addition of windows, doors and eaves. This has been possible due the help of relatives and other kind people and not just through CEF. This is wonderful for this family and as you can imagine they are thrilled.

Another of the families we help, the family who were living under sheets of corrugated iron, have now come to the end of their winter let which CEF arranged to shelter them from the worst of the winds, rains and cold and now they have to vacate as their landlady wants to prepare the house for Tet - the Vietnamese New Year. Generous friends of CEF have helped to keep them dry and warm through the winter which they have greatly appreciated.

Now they need to move out. The government has promised them land some time; they say sometimes after new year, but in the meantime they have permission to build a temporary shelter but they have no funds for building even that as they lost all their building materials in the terrible flood we had in Hoi An in September.

The mother is weak and ill too, as she has heart disease. Evidently her case is not urgent enough to put her near the top of the waiting list yet. She has had appointments and has been promised 50% of the the funds needed for heart surgery, meaning she still needs approximately $3,000 AUS / AUD (yes the exchange rate at present is almost the same) for her surgery. On top of that there will be costs related to post operative recovery. This family struggle to eat let alone afford schooling, medicine or surgery.

In the meantime she can't afford her medications which cost about $100 AUD / USD a month. Donations for her medicine have provided her with medicine until now, but now we need more funds to keep her in as good health as possible without the surgery so she can care for her children and help little P who CEF has put into school. Thoa the mother is so tired that she struggles to look after her two children while her husband is out looking for work or working.

Some further help related to the story above would be appreciated:
1. Donations towards building materials for little P and her family
2. Donations for monthly medicines for Thoa, little P's mother at around $100 USD / AUD a month.
3.Perhaps someone knows of an organization that may be able to fund the remainder of her surgical costs and post operative care.

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