Creating environment for children empowerment and development

 With financial support from the Government of Belgium (Directorate-general for Development Co-operation - DGD) through PI Belgium, the project will be implemented at the central level and in Kon Tum and Lai Chau provinces from 2017 to 2021 by the VWU, PI Vietnam and Live & Learn. The project has 2 components including early childhood care and development (ECCD) and climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction through education (DRR/CCA), a total budget of about EUR 2.6 million, including EUR 1.5 million to be managed by the VWU for the activities at central level and in the 2 provinces.

The first component - ECCD is aimed to achieve the following outcome “Ethnic minority children aged 0-8 in Kontum and Laichau provinces grow in a safe and stimulating environment due to access to high-quality early childhood care and education, and pre-primary education generated by community involvement and the strengthening of local authorities”. For the second component - DRR/CCA, the expected outcome is “Children in primary and lower-secondary schools (over 6 years old) in the targeted areas learn in a safer environment thanks to increased resilience to natural disasters and climate change adaptation skills at school and in communities generated by community involvement and the strengthening of local authorities”.

Speaking at the LOI signing ceremony, VWU President Nguyen Thi Thu Ha highly appreciated PI - VWU effective partnership in implementing the Vietnam’s Parenting Program under the ECCD Country Program and the project o­n promoting gender equality in access to clean water and rural environmental sanitation. The VWU pays great attention to promoting children’s rights through parents, promoting gender equality in schools and equality for girls, which requires more initiatives and resources.

Ms. Thu Ha emphasized the first among the VWU’s three key tasks for the 2017-2022 term “Providing communication, mobilizing, and supporting women in their comprehensive development and building happy families". With a life-cycle approach of supporting women, building female human resources from early childhood, and investing and caring for future mothers, the project to be implemented from now to 2021, will contribute to assisting the VWU at all levels to effectively implement its above-mentioned key task.

The project is more strategic when targeting not o­nly children but also parents, teachers, schools, local authorities, communities... In addition to skills improvement for children, the project aims at knowledge improvement in schools, which is a fundamental solution, laying the foundation for holistic gender education. The VWU will make its best efforts in implementing the project and consider the project implementation as o­ne of its political tasks. And it is hoped that the project partners will work closely together in order to achieve the set objectives, thus bringing about positive and effective impacts o­n children and the community.

Ms. Sandra Galbusera, Program Director of PI Belgium, said the project would promote gender mainstreaming, empower children, and help women and girls escape from gender prejudices and overcome gender inequalities, thus enabling them to realize their own dreams.

She shared that, during the past week, the project partners discussed and prepared the project’s draft work plan for the next five years, and had impressive field trips providing them opportunities to talk with local authorities, meet with teachers, parents, women and children in remote areas of difficult living conditions. These experiences have enriched her and the team members’ understanding of the community, thus motivating them to develop better cooperation programs. She expected the project to achieve good results, which would serve as a basis for opening up cooperation opportunities among the partners for another five-year period.