Student volunteers volunteer flew to Vietnam on Christmas Day to help with a charity home-building project in the Southeast Asian country.

About 100 university students joined the “Beyond POSCO Corps” group to fly out from Incheon Airport to take part in the 12-day Habitat for Humanity Korea project.

A previous POSCO-sponsored project last year saw students renovate old houses in Indonesia.

A total of 400 students have become POSCO Corps since 2007 and they have traveled to Thailand, India and Indonesia to take part in disaster relief and construction projects in previous years.

This year, they are now helping to construct 10 homes for elderly people living in Vietnam’s Tien Giang province.

Habitat for Humanity first started working to reduce poverty in the province in the country’s southern Mekong Delta region in 2002. Its volunteers from around the world are working there to provide more than 1,000 families with improved sanitation and housing.

Families there often face health risks from poor sanitation due to a lack of access to clean water or proper toilets.

The international NGO is also extending microfinance schemes to people living in the province that has a population of around 1.6 million.

Habitat for Humanity has helped construct homes for people in more than 100 countries since it was founded in 1976.

And local branch Habitat for Humanity Korea has sent about 700 volunteers overseas each year since it was established here in 1994.

For more information go to the www.habitat.or.kr website or go to www.habitatvietnam.org.

By Kirsty Taylor (kirstyt@heraldcorp.com)