Vietnam
Full country name: Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Area: 329,566 square kilometres
Population: 75 million (2.3% annual growth rate)
Capital city: Hanoi (population one million)
People: 85% ethnic Vietnamese, 3% ethnic Chinese, also Khmer,
Cham and members of some 60 ethno-linguistic groups
(also known as Montagnards, or `highlanders' in French)
Language: Vietnamese, Russian, French, Chinese, English and a variety of Mon-Khmer and Malayo-Polynesian local dialects
Religion: Buddhism is the principal religion, but there are also sizeable Taoist, Confucian, Hoa Hao, Caodaists, Muslim and Christian minorities.
Current Focus and Concerns
terre des hommes Germany's own history started with Vietnam, which sensitised the organisation to issues of development and human rights.
The first TDH Germany relief missions were conducted in the late 1960s, and aimed at rescuing children injured during the long American War on Indochina. Thus, Vietnamese organisations were the first project partners of TDH.
Initially, one of the most important efforts was assistance to handicapped children. After medical rehabilitation, school and vocational education supported their social rehabilitation. Since the war ended in 1975, TDH has continued involvement in children’s rehabilitation, including support for malnourished children as well. Even with enormous economic growth, many families still do not have enough to eat, and in 1999 some 40 percent of children under five years old were malnourished. The long-standing TDH project partner, the Center of Rehabilitation for Malnourished Children and Support for Handicapped Children (CROM), based in Ho Chi Minh City, continues to provide both centre and community-based rehabilitation services.
In more recent years, TDH also supports partner organisations in addressing other social problems at the community level. In order to strengthen the recognition and status of women in society, women and girls are supported in vocational training.
Loans are provided to help increase women’s income in remote rural areas in both the north and the south of the country. Environmental education and reforestation efforts are in place. Most recently, TDH supports project partners in ethnic minority communities that, due to their remote location and other factors, have least benefited from national economic growth.
After the 2000 Vietnamese National Partner Meeting held in Thanh Hoa and the 2001 Regional TDH Partner Meeting in Maesot, Thailand future issues for TDH partners in Vietnam have been prioritised as below.
Gender
Since many grassroots level projects focus on women only, gender relations do not change significantly, and the men’s traditional attitudes continue to influence community and family life. Therefore, projects shall include the following corrective measures:
- Consciousness raising on gender equity among women and men.
- Increased gender education and information dissemination.
In addition to the above, vocational training for women, loans for income generation activities, and preventive and re-integrative measures regarding trafficking in girls and women, especially across the Vietnamese border, will be continued as well.
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) Monitoring
Vietnamese partners will focus on three groups of children in difficult circumstances - handicapped children, abused children and orphans – through the following measures:
- Increasing dissemination and monitoring of the content of the CRC.
- Timely and community-oriented rehabilitation of handicapped children, including access to vocational education.
- Assistance for social rehabilitation after medical assistance has been completed.
- Counselling for abused children and their families.
- Community oriented help for orphans.
- Support enabling children to attend school.
Ethnic Minorities
Ethnic minorities shall remain a major concern of project partners supported by TDH Germany. Communities shall be strengthened through projects with the following essential components:
- Access for children and women to education and medical services.
- Strengthening family economies through agro-forestry and stockbreeding supported by scientific methodologies.
- Consciousness raising about the need for environmental protection.
- Preservation and restoration of culture, especially language, arts and customs.
Bio-Diversity
Vietnamese partner organisations of TDH recognise the need to intensify information campaigns in order to raise understanding about how bio-diversity and environmental problems are inter-linked. Current reforestation projects will continue, but projects opposing mono-cultural agriculture are needed as well. Moreover, farmer groups should be supported to better understand the danger of insecticides, and to cultivate vegetables and rice without the use of chemicals. The rapid disappearance of medicinal herbs has to be halted as well.
Partners recognise that the economic war against poverty is high on the agenda, and perhaps more difficult than the military and political war of liberation. In spite of the difficulties, TDH has never diminished its support to partners.
Area: 329,566 square kilometres
Population: 75 million (2.3% annual growth rate)
Capital city: Hanoi (population one million)
People: 85% ethnic Vietnamese, 3% ethnic Chinese, also Khmer,
Cham and members of some 60 ethno-linguistic groups
(also known as Montagnards, or `highlanders' in French)
Language: Vietnamese, Russian, French, Chinese, English and a variety of Mon-Khmer and Malayo-Polynesian local dialects
Religion: Buddhism is the principal religion, but there are also sizeable Taoist, Confucian, Hoa Hao, Caodaists, Muslim and Christian minorities.
Current Focus and Concerns
terre des hommes Germany's own history started with Vietnam, which sensitised the organisation to issues of development and human rights.
The first TDH Germany relief missions were conducted in the late 1960s, and aimed at rescuing children injured during the long American War on Indochina. Thus, Vietnamese organisations were the first project partners of TDH.
Initially, one of the most important efforts was assistance to handicapped children. After medical rehabilitation, school and vocational education supported their social rehabilitation. Since the war ended in 1975, TDH has continued involvement in children’s rehabilitation, including support for malnourished children as well. Even with enormous economic growth, many families still do not have enough to eat, and in 1999 some 40 percent of children under five years old were malnourished. The long-standing TDH project partner, the Center of Rehabilitation for Malnourished Children and Support for Handicapped Children (CROM), based in Ho Chi Minh City, continues to provide both centre and community-based rehabilitation services.
In more recent years, TDH also supports partner organisations in addressing other social problems at the community level. In order to strengthen the recognition and status of women in society, women and girls are supported in vocational training.
Loans are provided to help increase women’s income in remote rural areas in both the north and the south of the country. Environmental education and reforestation efforts are in place. Most recently, TDH supports project partners in ethnic minority communities that, due to their remote location and other factors, have least benefited from national economic growth.
After the 2000 Vietnamese National Partner Meeting held in Thanh Hoa and the 2001 Regional TDH Partner Meeting in Maesot, Thailand future issues for TDH partners in Vietnam have been prioritised as below.
Gender
Since many grassroots level projects focus on women only, gender relations do not change significantly, and the men’s traditional attitudes continue to influence community and family life. Therefore, projects shall include the following corrective measures:
- Consciousness raising on gender equity among women and men.
- Increased gender education and information dissemination.
In addition to the above, vocational training for women, loans for income generation activities, and preventive and re-integrative measures regarding trafficking in girls and women, especially across the Vietnamese border, will be continued as well.
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) Monitoring
Vietnamese partners will focus on three groups of children in difficult circumstances - handicapped children, abused children and orphans – through the following measures:
- Increasing dissemination and monitoring of the content of the CRC.
- Timely and community-oriented rehabilitation of handicapped children, including access to vocational education.
- Assistance for social rehabilitation after medical assistance has been completed.
- Counselling for abused children and their families.
- Community oriented help for orphans.
- Support enabling children to attend school.
Ethnic Minorities
Ethnic minorities shall remain a major concern of project partners supported by TDH Germany. Communities shall be strengthened through projects with the following essential components:
- Access for children and women to education and medical services.
- Strengthening family economies through agro-forestry and stockbreeding supported by scientific methodologies.
- Consciousness raising about the need for environmental protection.
- Preservation and restoration of culture, especially language, arts and customs.
Bio-Diversity
Vietnamese partner organisations of TDH recognise the need to intensify information campaigns in order to raise understanding about how bio-diversity and environmental problems are inter-linked. Current reforestation projects will continue, but projects opposing mono-cultural agriculture are needed as well. Moreover, farmer groups should be supported to better understand the danger of insecticides, and to cultivate vegetables and rice without the use of chemicals. The rapid disappearance of medicinal herbs has to be halted as well.
Partners recognise that the economic war against poverty is high on the agenda, and perhaps more difficult than the military and political war of liberation. In spite of the difficulties, TDH has never diminished its support to partners.