Habitat was lucky enough to host 400 Optus Sales and support staff on the 19th and 20th of July.  We had 200 on each day in Long An, in the Me Kong, about 1.5 hours from Ho Chi Minh.  They were picked up by bus and driven down there and worked on 6 houses and two schools.

I was helping with the school and we were painting inside and out and building a toilet block. Here we are at the start of the build, waiting to get on the bus.  We have from top to bottom, left to right

Thanh (aka Sunny), me, Phuoc, Trang and Huy.

We had a welcome from the local government in Long An before before we started.  It is a great sight to see so many people working and especially because I didn’t have to, I was a coordinator.  I think it is a role I excelled at, aka bossing people around!.

The school where we were working had 400 students and it is currently school holidays here.  They get about 2.5 months off.  Lucky parents!

Below are pictures of the toilets that the children currently use.  The one of the left if for number 2 (or heavy as they call it in Vietnam) and the picture on the right is for number 1 (light).  Note that the picture on the right is not covered and this is for the use of 400 primary school students.  This is a busy place.

So we didn’t feel left out, we had a squat porta loo.

Optus organised some speakers who they flew out from Australia for their Sales Conference and one of them was Brooke Hanson, swimmer.  I just had to take a selfie, it is what you do here.

We had a great two days and at the end we had presentations with the 6 families and the two schools and a group photo

The best part of this is watching the delight that the families have with their new homes.