Vut is 10 years old and lives with her family in a village in a remote mountain district of central Vietnam.
Every morning she wakes at around 5.30 to the sound of the fire crackling in the hearth. “My mother is usually the first early riser to boil water and prepare breakfast,” Vut says.
Until recently, Vut’s mother had to wake well before dawn every day to fetch water from a distant stream. But those days are over following the installation of a new gravity-fed water system in her village, made possible through World Vision child sponsorship.
The new water system also provides Vut with a few more precious moments of sleep. “It is but a step to the clean water tap to give my teeth a brush,” she says. “I then can help my mother to boil drinking water before having breakfast and going to school.”
Like the majority of people living in this district, Vut and her family belong to the Katu ethnic group.
Traditionally, the Katu people have made their living by cultivating crops such as rice and cassava on the neighbouring hillsides using slash and burn practices. However, this has led to deforestation and soil erosion, which has made it harder than ever for them to grow enough food to meet their needs.
With support from Australian child sponsors, World Vision has been working in Vut’s community to improve agricultural production techniques, increase access to basic healthcare and education.
New classrooms and study facilities at Vut’s primary school means that many more children from her village can now attend classes.
“I love school,” says Vut. “My favourite subject is Arts and Drawing. I like blue the most, as blue is the colour of water in the river and the sea is also blue. I wish I could see the sea with my eyes and taste its salty water.”
After school, and when all her homework is done, Vut often heads out to help her mother in the family’s fields where they grow rice, corn, cassava, pineapples and bananas.
Farmers in this community, including Vut’s parents, have received training in improved planting and irrigation techniques so that they can increase the size and quality of their harvest and generate income from the sale of their produce.
When all the chores are done, it’s time to prepare the evening meal, which Vut and her younger brother often share with their mum and dad in the family cooking house.
Vut speaks fondly of her Australian sponsor and proudly shows visitors a selection of greeting cards she has received from her sponsor over the years.
“My sponsor shall be a nice and kind lady like my teacher,” she ponders. “If I meet her, I’ll say ‘thank you!’ to her and present her with a colourful thank you message that I have prepared.”