VietNamNet Bridge - A courageous young woman suffering from a serious kidney ailment has died leaving her dream of providing books for impoverished children unfinished.

VietNamNet Bridge – She has no arms but Le Thi Tham, 11, a 6th grader in the central province of Thanh Hoa has been an excellent pupil for many years. She can embroider and draw paintings as gifts for others

HCM CITY — Limited access to credit, lengthy registration procedures and family responsibilities are major gender-related obstacles that stand in the way of women hoping to run their own businesses, according to a recent study.

What are the main climate change challenges facing Viet Nam? What policies are needed to ensure that Viet Nam continues on a path of sustainable human development? These are the main questions addressed in Viet Nam and Climate Change: A discussion paper on policies for sustainable human development which was launched today at a national climate change dialogue organized by the United Nations, the Viet Nam Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and Oxfam.

For Mrs Seako Ando, a Japanese woman, Hanoi has become her second motherland. Other members in her family also consider Hanoi as their home.

Including gender related issues in climate change policy is just one of the recommendations in a report released by the United Nations and Oxfam representatives at a workshop on climate change in Hanoi on Dec. 2.

VietNamNet Bridge - Gender equality should be made a more substantive issue, according to women deputies in the National Assembly.

A conference aimed at strengthening male and female religious followers’ commitments to HIV/AIDS prevention in Vietnam was held in the central city of Hue on November 22.

Climate change not only endangers lives and undermines livelihoods, but it threatens to enlarge the gaps between the rich and the poor and amplify the inequities between women and men, according to the State of World Population 2009 report launched today by the United Nations in Vietnam and the Ministry of Nature Resources and Environment (MONRE).

Numerous studies from around the globe confirm the links between violence against women and HIV. These studies show that women living with HIV are more likely to have experienced violence, and that, women who have experienced violence are more likely to have HIV infection.

The US-based Chevron company will provide US$300,000 for the Save the Children Foundation to implement a project which aims to help 500,000 poor women in the Mekong Delta to develop small businesses at home.

BAC NINH — Vice President Nguyen Thi Doan has called upon all sections of Vietnamese society to curb discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS, which, she said, was continuing to spread.

BRUSSELS - Sending more girls to school may help poor countries get out of the economic slump faster, the NGO Plan International says in a new report. Just a one percent rise in the number of girls attending secondary school boosts a country's annual per capita income growth by 0.3 percent.

VietNamNet Bridge – The Loreto-Viet Nam Australia Programme (LVAP) is gearing up for a large open-air musical concert featuring foreign and Vietnamese artists that will raise funds for the disabled and poor children in Viet Nam.

On October 16th, the Party Central Committee’s Commission on Propaganda and Training and the United Nations Population Funds held a seminar on updating and sharing information about population, reproductive health and sex to serve the population and family planning.

HAI PHONG — More than a thousand female workers attended the Global Call for Action Against Poverty by ActionAid Viet Nam held in the northern port city of Hai Phong yesterday to mark the World Day to Overcome Extreme Poverty which fell on Saturday.

A training workshop on how to collect information when covering domestic violence opened on September 29 in the northern city of Hai Phong for reporters from national and local newspapers.

CPV: A new multi-agency advisory taskforce working collaboratively across Vietnam and the wider region to tackle the exploitation of children is at the heart of an initiative launched today September 30 in Hanoi by the UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre.

On October 1st, 2009, 10 years after the first celebration of the International Day of Older Persons is going to be celebrated with the theme "Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the International Year of Older Persons: Towards a Society for All Ages".

HCM CITY — Harsher punishments should be meted out to those who exploit children, according to Le Thi Xuan Lang, deputy chief inspector of HCM City’s Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (DoLISA).