THAILAND

The 26th Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project kicked off in late February with a groundbreaking ceremony at Moo Baan Nong Kan Kru in Chiang Mai, the northern capital of Thailand. Visiting dignitaries and members of the local community gathered on the future build site, a former orchard, to officially open the construction project.

Attending the event were Eric John, U.S. ambassador to Thailand; Wiboon Sanguanpong, governor of Chiang Mai; Richard Hathaway, Habitat for Humanity International’s area vice president for Asia and the Pacific; and Dr. Chainarong Monthienvichienchai, chair of Habitat Thailand.

Prior to the ceremony, Habitat had already begun the required site preparation, starting to clear vegetation on the land and performing technical surveys. Habitat also has met with community leaders and Chiang Mai government officials to work in partnership on a successful project.

Chiang Mai will serve as the main host site for the Nov. 15-20 project and will be the anchor to the five-country event, with additional builds taking place in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and China. At the Chiang Mai site, approximately 3,000 volunteers from Thailand and around the world will build homes with 82 partner families, a number chosen to commemorate His Majesty the King’s 82nd birthday, which falls on Dec. 5.

“As we turn the soil today, we mark the beginning of the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project 2009,” said Habitat Thailand’s Monthienvichienchai. “I encourage you to tell others about Habitat for Humanity, about this event and about the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be part of a current of change that will have lasting implications for Chiang Mai, for Thailand and for the Mekong region.”

Habitat for Humanity followed up the groundbreaking event with a press conference in Bangkok featuring Habitat Thailand’s celebrity ambassador Rattapoom “Film” Tokongsub, who encouraged youth to get involved and support the project in November.

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CAMBODIA

On the eastern outskirts of the Cambodian capital city of Phnom Penh sits a 100-acre dump site. Every day, a long line of dump trucks queues up, each waiting its turn to belch out what will total 900 tons of rubbish. And every day, hundreds of individuals — some of them young children — show up to scavenge through the huge mounds, seeking items to salvage and sell. They stand in the smoke of trash fires and dodge the trucks and tractors that move and manage the shifting piles of garbage.

Numerous communities surround the dump site, with families living in simple makeshift housing, most with no running water or proper sanitation facilities. The majority of these depend on the dump site for income.

One of these communities, known as Domnak Tom 1, is home to more than 100 families. Two years ago, however, 21 of these families got together and started making a plan for their future, beginning a savings group with a plan to purchase land outside of the city. These 21 families, aided in their land acquisition by an Australian couple, are the future homeowners of Carter Work Project 2009.

“My dream is to see the families in this community be self-reliant once we move to the new housing community,” says community leader Chea Chandy. Some have already branched out from their toil at the dump site, working as cobblers, vegetable sellers, bakers, motorbike taxi drivers and daily labor workers. Habitat Cambodia will help these families build homes approximately 35 kilometers away (22 miles) in Kandal province.

“We have come a long way since we first arrived here nine years ago,” says Chandy, who lives in Domnak Tom 1 with his wife and seven children. “Our new community will be known as ‘The New Life Community’ because this is what it will represent to each of us, a new life for our families and the chance to own a house.”

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VIETNAM

On the banks of the Thai Binh River, in a fishing village called Dong Xa, boats cluster together at water’s edge. The families that fish from these boats also live on them. Sometimes as many as five or six people — grandparents, parents, toddlers — share the narrow sliver of wood underneath the thatched roof that covers the back half of the boat.

Across the wide water, a church spire towers against the cloudy sky as a street market fills with shoppers. When school lets out for the day, boats begin to cross, carrying children back to the boats they call home.

Four years ago, the District People’s Committee and the Ke Sat Town Authority, recognizing the plight and poverty level of the community, set aside land for the 136 families of Dong Xa. Each family was asked to pay US$450 for a parcel of land and US$150 to contribute to other costs. Seventy families were able to buy the land and then build a house. The remaining 66 have paid for their land but have been unable to build shelter on their own and so remain on their boats.

That’s where Habitat and the Carter Work Project come in. Dong Xa will be the site of the project’s Vietnam build, these 66 families future Habitat homeowners. On a warm October afternoon, representatives of these families crowd into the village’s community center, eager to hear about Habitat and the opportunity it brings. One man, eager for a house for his four children, laughs with joy at the idea of building his own. “I haven’t done it before,” he says, “but I would help. Yes, yes, I would certainly help.”