In the very north of Vietnam, in a mountainous area near the border to China, is the district of Bao Lac with about 50’000 inhabitants. Ethnic tribes are living in isolated communities under very harsh conditions, with no infrastructure. Helvetas of Switzerland together with a local NGO – the Cao Bang Community Development Center (DECEN) started supporting these people.

In 2012 Helvetas and Fontana Foundation defined a project in which 10 villages are to be equipped with water and sanitation facilities, affecting the lives of about 1’700 individuals. Gravitational filtration for clean drinking water, dry eco-latrines for sanitation and even biogas production for cooking and lighting were planned. The people in the 10 villages were directly involved in the construction. We visited the sites in May 2012. The project was successfully concluded, with some delay, in April 2013. We continue our support directly with the local partner and have started a similar project in other villages for 2013/14. All installations are being “geo-tagged” to track all sites on a map, giving us full transparency of the progress.