The junior founded an organization that brings clean water to families in Vietnam
Building wells is not only about better health, Ngo said, but about sending a sign of hope “that people can bounce back from disaster.” Photo: Alonso Nichols
Anh Ngo, A26, came to suburban Los Angeles, California, from Saigon, Vietnam, at age 10. As a high school senior, she watched helplessly as her home country was ravaged by floods, leading to a water crisis. Even worse, Ngo’s parents had traveled home on business while she stayed behind in California with relatives; they were stranded abroad for months before reuniting with her.
After high school graduation, Ngo returned to Vietnam, intent on making a difference. Collaborating with her uncle, a local occupational engineer, she worked to distribute clean water and to secure funding to build water wells, traveling to Saigon for networking events to shore up investments and to connect with water engineers and builders.
Her organization, Wells for Wellness, has expanded to distribute information about good hygiene practices when using well water, which can stave off urinary infections and renal diseases.
As a Laidlaw Scholar, Ngo is conducting research on the correlation between psychopathological and lower urinary tract symptoms in autistic adults. Someday, she hopes to become a doctor.
What’s the idea behind your project?
Wells for Wellness is a community project dedicated to improving urinary health in Vietnam by constructing water wells and fostering community sustainability. Over the past two years, we’ve constructed 10 water wells and distributed clean water and food supplies to over 1,500 families in the Khánh Hòa and Bến Tre provinces.
Why does it matter to you?
When I was a senior in high school in California, a devastating flood hit Vietnam, my motherland. I felt so helpless, especially because my parents were there. When summer came, I traveled there to help out for a month.
I then realized that, along with damages like lost lives, broken infrastructure, and lost crops, a long-term issue was damage to water sanitation. This leads to renal disease, urinary tract infections, and other water-borne diseases.
Through Wells for Wellness, people can access water using wells that we’ve stationed at community centers. But we began to realize that people don’t know how to manage the water from those wells after taking it home: They aren’t storing it properly, or they’re re-using it for cooking to be efficient, which isn’t hygienic.
What’s next for Wells for Wellness?
I continue to travel back to Vietnam three times every year. Now, we’re working with an elementary school to provide infographics for children, and later for parents, explaining how to practice better hygiene and how clean water can impact overall health. Next, we’re hoping to expand our efforts to other regions in Southeast Asia, such as Cambodia and Laos, where there’s also a lack of infrastructure and clean water.
Have your studies informed your work on the project?
At Tufts, I worked in the Center for Cellular Agriculture studying alternative proteins, because I’m interested in how sustainable agriculture can prevent natural disasters, like floods. I’ve taken courses on entrepreneurship and how to run a nonprofit, which has really helped for this project.
For my major in child studies and human development, I also took a really amazing course called Disability and Difference in Children. It’s loosely related to my project, but it introduced me to the idea of universal design, which made me more aware of integrating accessibility into my project.
Eventually, I want to go to medical school to study family medicine, working with communities including those in Vietnam.
How will your idea make a difference?
Because my project focuses on water, I’m going to use a water analogy: If you drop water into a pond, it splashes into bigger circles. I think my project is like that water splash. It isn’t the end solution; it’s the beginning of something that can become greater. In addition to all the obvious health benefits that my project offers, it also offered a symbol of hope—that people can bounce back from disaster.
