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On August 29^th 2017, MCNV collaborated with the Village Health Workers’ Association of Quang Tri Province and the Youth Union of Huong Hoa District to organize a kickoff workshop for MCNV’s new project “Supporting Ethnic Minority Adolescent Girls”. Participating in the event were representatives of the Provincial Health Department, Provincial Sexual and Reproductive Health Centre, Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs and the authority and relevant parties of the district, including People’s Committee, Health Department, Health Centre, Centre for Population and Family Planning, Department of Training and Education, Department of Labour, Invalid and Social Affairs, Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Women’s Union and Youth Union, as well as international non-governmental organisations Plan and World Vision.

An assessment carried out by MCNV in collaboration with the Provincial Sexual and Reproductive Health Centre in the first half of 2017 has shown that ethnic minority adolescent girls in Huong Hoa are facing serious health, education and social problems. To evidence, in 2016 in Huong Hoa there were 301 girls out of totally 483 cases who became pregnant at adolescence (counted for 62.3% of the total number of pregnant adolescent girls in the province), 120 cases of child marriage, and 30% of adolescent girls under 15 years old and 50% under 16 started having sex. The ethnic minority adolescent girls lack knowledge and skills in SRHR, face difficulties in accessing quality health and education services, and are affected by local cultural customs and limited awareness of the community.

In 2017 and 2018, the project will be implemented in 6 communes in the border area Vietnam – Laos, including Huong Lap, Huong Phung, Huong Viet, Lao Bao, Tan Long and Tan Thanh. The project’s general objective is to reduce the rates of unwanted pregnancy and child marriage among adolescent girls. Key interventions will focus on (i) building capacity and creating opportunity for personal development for adolescent girls; (ii) improving the access to health, education and social services for adolescent girls; (iii) raising the local authority’s and people’s awareness about the issues related to adolescent girls. A wide range of activities have been planned, including a social marketing campaign for behaviour change communication, setting up clubs and groups of adolescent girls, checking up and counselling on SRH, providing scholarships and vocational trainings for disadvantaged adolescent girls, and improving SRH knowledge and skills for adolescent girls, thus contributing to ending unwanted pregnancy and child marriage among adolescent girls.

*Photo: Ms. Phan Thi Lien, Chair of the Village Health Association, Quang Tri province, was presenting the image and symbol of the project named Mun Arai.

On September 12, representatives from 7 MCNV funded community development funds in Phu Yen province together with MCNV staff visited and worked with the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) team in Ho Chi Minh city. This meeting was the first step in which MCNV seek PwC’s expertise on financial management and legal consultation to help MCNV funded microfinance funds in Ben Tre, Quang Tri and Phu Yen province improve their technical and legal capacity to be self-sustained in development.

MCNV has been supporting social inclusion and health programs in these provinces for a long time and in each program, the microfinance component has been a glue and catalyst to connect target groups to participate and commit more to program objectives and at the same time, improve financial inclusion. MCNC’s target in the near future is to make these microfinance components to be independent funds to sustain themselves and continue to support the poor with minimum support from MCNV.

PwC is a renowned company in legal and financial consulting field. PwC had supported MCNV with CSR (corporate social responsibility) grants to improve education for children with disability. This time, PwC is interested to support this microfinance sector to make use of their in-depth expertise and also create opportunities for PwC staff to develop their capacity in a more challenging community microfinance environment.

MCNV and PwC will organize more discussions on cooperation in the coming time.

Working with PwC Sept 12 2017

On morning of September 9 2017 in Dien Bien Phu city, the Medical Committee Netherlands-Vietnam (MCNV) cooperated with the Department of Education and Training (DOET) of Dien Bien province organized a workshop to introduce the new book “Education in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for high school students”. The workshop gathered representatives who were teachers and officials of 31 high schools in Dien Bien.

With the aim of helping high school teachers to educate their students about SRHR, the book provided teachers with important, practical, and useful knowledge about gender and sexuality; friendship, love among teenagers; contraceptive methods and possible ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies; prevention of sexually transmitted diseases; the problem of sexual abuse among teenagers; personal hygiene; child marriage and early marriage…

Mr. Anh Quoc Nguyen, MCNV’s Coordinator was giving a prize at the workshop

The book was one activity in the project “Enhancing communication in SRHR education for high school students in the mountainous area of Dien Bien”, which was supported by MCNV. The book compiling and production were made in one and a half year, with the contribution of five high school teachers in Dien Bien, two staff members of MCNV; and a doctor from the Hanoi National University of Education. The ultimate goal of the project was to improve teachers’ awareness on SRHS, help them understand more correctly about the issue and then can teach their students better, especially ethnic minority school girls.

According to Dr. Thanh Xuan Nguyen, deputy director of the Ministry of Education and Training, Dien Bien province, the book was a pioneer in the SRHR field, which contained much good knowledge on SRHR for high school students at ages 15 to 18.

The document also had its scientific value, which could be used as a source of reference for researchers, educators, and teachers who care about SRHR. On this special occasion, more than 400 copies of the book were given to high school teachers in Dien Bien.

In three years, from 2015 to 2017, the project has also developed many activities, including building capacity in SRHR for high school teachers, improve students’ kowledge about SRHR, and running the club “Our Ages” which is a platform for students to share their stories and experience of SRHR.

Between September 25 and October 12 2017, MCNV and the Athena Research Institute, Vrije Amsterdam University, the Netherlands, conducted a retrospective study on the status of nutrition in children age under 5 in four villages, Ky Du, Phu Son, Xi Thoai, and Ha Rai of Xuan Quang 2 and Xuan Lanh communes, Dong Xuan district, Phu Yen province.