❤️Four Little Children in Hậu Giang Now Have a Cozy Home, Friends❤️

The recent Storm No. 2 in Phương Phú – Phụng Hiệp, Hậu Giang brought down 2 houses. One was the home of Mr. Tuấn and Ms. Dung, which Y Tam stepped in quickly to help them rebuild, and it is nearly finished.

The second was the home of 4 little children living with their grandmother.
Honestly, it breaks your heart just to tell it. Their parents split up and each now has a family of their own (and both are very poor), leaving the 4 children for their grandmother to raise, but she is old, frail and nearly blind, and cannot earn any money.

The oldest is 16 this year, and the youngest is 4. The two oldest have had to drop out of school, while the third, a girl, still goes. Every day they have to go out catching snails to sell for a living. That is how the grandmother and her grandchildren lean on each other; if anyone suggested taking one of the children to Saigon, she would never agree.

When the storm brought the house down, the grandmother and the children's youngest uncle scraped together 3 million VND to buy some wood and roofing sheets (the thinnest kind) to put up a temporary roof. Then the money ran out, so the house was left bare, with no walls and nothing finished, and they could not live in it.

When Y Tam came to visit, we could not hold back our emotions. At first Y Tam planned to take everything down and rebuild it solidly, but the locals advised us to simply fix it up on the existing frame without dismantling it, because the posts are made of tràm (melaleuca) wood, which is very durable. As for the floor, two years ago a Buddhist nun took pity on the children and gave it to them, so now we don't need to build it.

After a period of appealing to donors for help, Y Tam did everything possible to help the children repair the house, with the following work:

– Re-roofing with 4.2 thick metal sheets to replace the old, thin 2.08 sheets
– Building a foundation and raising the walls 1m higher to keep insects, mosquitoes… out of the house
– Putting up metal walls all the way from front to back and fitting a front door, windows and a kitchen door
– Adding a bedroom so the 3 girls can sleep safely in a room
– Building a kitchen at the back so the children have a place to cook, with low brick walls and clean patterned tiles.
– Adding a front porch awning to keep the rain from blowing in

At first Y Tam estimated that basic repairs would cost only 15.8 million VND, but as the work went on we kept adding things for the children, such as the bedroom, the kitchen and the porch awning. Because Y Tam added these items, the cost rose above the original estimate. Total spending has now reached 26 million VND, everyone.
Luckily, Y Tam has already received enough support from donors to cover this amount.

Seeing the finished house, all the neighbors praised it and were happy for the children.

Y Tam's only regret is that if we had come sooner (before the house was put up with wood), the children's house would surely have been even nicer!

Sincerely!