 |
|
Christopher J
Carpenter | |
Former UN
representative helps the poor
by Nguyen Thanh Ha
From
the most remote, impoverished communes to the corridors
of power, everyone knows how much Christopher Carpenter
cares about Viet Nam.
"Thanks to Carpenter we now have a sealed road to
take our goods to market, whereas before we had to
travel on sand," said a farmer from Cam Lo District in
the central Quang Tri Province.
"Our
lives have been improving ever since."
A
farmer from Hoa An commune in the Cuu Long (Mekong)
Delta province of Tra Vinh said his fellow villagers are
very happy because the village’s first bridge opened to
traffic last week thanks to the American man’s
donation.
As the
former head of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) in Viet Nam, Carpenter has been to many of the
country’s provinces over the past decade.
He
said he has been pleased to witness much progress as a
result of the Government’s hunger eradication and
poverty alleviation programme.
"Almost every commune I have visited now has
electricity, and most have adequate supplies of drinking
water and enough food to eat and sell on the market,"
Carpenter said.
"Life
is still hard for most people, their incomes are still
low, but they seem to have the basics on which to live
and support their families," he said.
Carpenter has much sympathy for the people who
live in mountainous and remote areas, where the quality
of the soil makes farming difficult, and the people of
the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta because of its transport
problems.
"Many
people ask me why I decided to work in Viet Nam,"
Carpenter said.
He
recalled that when he worked for UNHCR in Viet Nam from
1993 to 1995, he was involved in humanitarian programmes
that aimed to help people returning to their native
villages from nearby countries and territories such as
Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong.
The
UNHCR financed 685 micro-projects in these villages to
help the former returnees return to normal
lives.
"At
the time, I realised that Vietnamese people could do a
lot in a short space of time, and with limited financial
resources, to improve the socio-economic life of a
community."
"When
I retired from the UN four years ago, I decided to
undertake similar efforts in the context of poverty
alleviation."
 |
|
Carpenter works with his Vietnamese
partners to inspect land on which to build a
primary school in a remote commune in central
Quang Tri Province’s Cam Lo
District. |
|
 |
|
Carpenter and local authorities opening
the O Pu Bridge in the Cuu Long ( Mekong ) Delta
province of Tra Vinh. — Photos Luu Hong
Son | |
He
said his results and experience of these efforts have
been equally positive.
Carpenter established the Foundation for Micro
Projects in Viet Nam, which is a non-profit and tax-free
organisation registered in Switzerland.
Drawing on more than US$1.2 million of his own
money, he began funding 42 small projects in different
parts of the country in 1999, to improve the provision
of drinking water, irrigation, bridges, roads and
schools.
These
projects have been carried out in all regions of the
country, and have benefited about 96,000 poor
people.
Each
project costs the foundation no more than $30,000, and
any expenses over and above that amount are covered by
the local authorities.
Vu Anh
Son, chief of the UNHCR’s mission in Viet Nam and one of
Carpenter’s co-ordinators since 1993, said the American
has been personally involved in each of the
projects.
He
travelled to each needy area to investigate the local
situation, and worked with the residents and authorities
to seek the best ways to ensure the projects would be
effective.
Carpenter was particularly pleased that the
locals’ involvement in and contribution to the projects
gave them the incentive to ensure the projects would be
viable for the long term, Son said.
"I
have just returned from Tra Vinh, Soc Son and Bac Lieu
where eight bridges have just been finished.
I
sometimes think that, of all the types of projects
undertaken, bridges are very effective at benefiting a
large number of people," Carpenter said.
He
added what was his most impressive about these projects
is that they are completed within a very short time
frame (about six to eight months), despite harsh
climatic and geographical conditions.
There
have been inevitable delays on some projects due to the
problem of transporting building materials to remote
communes, but most of the local communities have shown
great ingenuity in both the design of the projects and
in getting them carried out, Carpenter said.
"I
would also have to give a lot of credit to the Ministry
of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, which has gone
to great lengths to support my efforts and in
facilitating the programme’s co-ordination."
He
said that this year he is concentrating on Phu Loc and
Cam Lo, which are two poor districts in the central
provinces of Thua Thien-Hue and Quang Tri.
The
assistance will be targeted at those communes where more
than 20 per cent of the population below the poverty
line.
It
will include the construction of primary and secondary
schools, health clinics, bridges and drinking water
systems.
Carpenter said that despite Government calls for
investment in remote and isolated areas, it is not easy
to get donors interested in financing small-scale micro
projects because they do not seem to fit in any neat
categories.
Or
perhaps the projects are just too small to justify the
paperwork, he said.
"However, the need is definitely there as it
fills a gap between the large national, bilateral and
multilateral aid programmes that benefit broad sections
of the population but whose benefits do not necessarily
filter down to some of the more remote communes in the
country."
To
recognise Carpenter’s support for poverty reduction and
hunger eradication, President Tran Duc Luong decided to
award him the Friendship Medal.
At the
awards ceremony held in Ha Noi last week, Labour,
Invalids and Social Affairs Minister Nguyen Thi Hang
thanked Carpenter and called him a good and heartfelt
friend of Viet Nam.
Despite suffering from cancer, he individually
saved $1,210,761 (about VND18 billion) to assist 42
infrastructure projects, she said.
At a
reception for Carpenter when the foundation began its
work in 1999, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai said he had
never seen any one individual donate so much of their
own money to Viet Nam without any conditions
attached.
"He
must love Viet Nam so much," the prime minister said. —
VNS | 
