The support of a young worker family in a foreign land
In a rented room of only 15m2, elderly mothers become a support to help young worker families overcome shift pressure, take care of their children and stabilize their lives.
Three generations in a 15-square-meter rented room
Room 201 in the worker housing area of Hoa Cam Industrial Park, Da Nang City, with an area of only about 15m2, is a shelter from rain and sun for four people including Ms. Cao Thi Ha Giang and her husband, her young child and her biological mother who came from the countryside to help.
In that cramped space, every space is maximally utilized, from the small corner where the simple gas stove is placed to the space in the middle of the house that is both a place to receive guests and a place to eat and drink. At night, the whole family of three generations has to share a small mattress spread close to the brick floor.
Cramped and lacking in private space, but Ms. Giang and her husband have never intended to move out to rent a room because the rent here is only about 400,000 VND/month, very suitable for a meager worker's salary.
Ms. Ha Giang confided that if her biological mother had not come from the countryside to live with her, it would be difficult for her and her husband to stay with the machinery workshop. Work in the industrial park requires continuous overtime, there are times when the wife works day shifts, the husband works night shifts, the pace of life is mismatched, making the time to meet each other only counted in minutes.
When the parents just returned from work with their eyes drooping from standing on the camera continuously, the child was washed clean by the grandmother, whispering around the hot meal tray. The silent sacrifice of the grandmother filled the time gap that the mechanical cycles unintentionally took away, helping the children feel secure in contributing to their work.
In the third-floor room of Ms. Nguyen Thi Truc Phuong's family, a worker in Hoa Cam Industrial Park, Da Nang City, in 2024, when her first child was still too young, Ms. Phuong's biological mother also packed her bags from her hometown to live with her in a 16m2 room to help take care of her grandchild for the couple working overtime.
By 2026, when the child is strong and can go to kindergarten, the grandmother will be reassured to return to her hometown. The timely support of the grandmothers in the most difficult years for their children and grandchildren is the source of nurturing family traditions, helping young worker families overcome the precarious period in a foreign land.
Expectations for living space
The worker housing area in Hoa Cam Industrial Park was once invested and built by the city with a scale of three building blocks on an area of nearly 28,000m2, with a total capital of 70 billion VND from the budget and put into operation from 2021.
The project carries the expectation of solving housing for hundreds of workers with 285 rooms. However, because the initial design according to the collective housing model was not really suitable for the lifestyle of multi-generational households, currently the whole area only has 74 out of 88 rooms in one tenant block, while the other two blocks are still deserted.
Understanding these inadequacies, Da Nang city is carrying out a project to renovate and upgrade this worker housing area to convert its function into social housing for rent with a scale of 200 closed apartments, expected to be completed in 2027.
The conversion to a fully functional apartment model is a fundamental step to solve the long-term housing problem. It will be a solid support for generations of workers' families to live comfortably together, keeping the warm and peaceful fire of the family intact after hours of hard work at the factory.
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