Viet Nam: Improving knowledge on resilient housing techniques of Damrey affected communities

Khanh Hoa province – The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in partnership with Khanh Hoa Provincial Red Cross Chapter, Development Workshop France (DWF) and Khanh Hoa Provincial government, organize typhoon resilient housing demonstrations in Xuan Son commune, Van Ninh district. These demonstrations show the local communities on how to repair their house with resilient techniques including strengthening the roofs and building good foundation.

It is part of a project titled “Provision of emergency shelter assistance to poor and near poor households affected by typhoon Damrey in Central Viet Nam” funded by the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). The project targets the families whose houses were heavily damaged by the recent Typhoon Damrey. More than 5,000 affected houses are being repaired. More than 27,000 vulnerable people are receiving training on resilient housing in five provinces of Khanh Hoa, Binh Dinh, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai and Thua Thien-Hue.

Attending the demonstration are representatives of UNDP, the Viet Nam Red Cross, Provincial Red Cross Chapter, local authority of Xuan Son commune, beneficiary communities, mass organizations and the provincial media.

“This project is implemented in the provinces that were most affected by Typhoon Damrey. It is timely and meets the local expectation”, said Ms Nguyen Thu Ha, Director of the Disaster Management Department, Viet Nam Red Cross.

Although houses are the biggest assets of the local people and resilient housing can help save their lives and reduce their losses, few of them know how to build a stormproof home. Most of them have a habit of building a normal house without any resilient features.

According to Ms Akiko Fujii, UNDP Deputy Country Director, who visited the site and met the affected communities today, “Today’s training is an important step towards ensuring better preparedness of vulnerable households for the future typhoons. Having storm-resilient houses will increase protection of valuable lives, assets and livelihoods, and consequently reduce the potential negative impacts on families’ health, children’s education and psychological stresses when hit by storms”. 

Typhoon Damrey hit Viet Nam on 4 November 2017. It was the strongest one in 2017. It battered some of the poorest communities of the South-Central coastal region. More than 130,000 homes were damaged, of which over 3,500 were destroyed. Dozens of displace families had to live in temporary and unsafe shelters.