News

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.

In the week of 20^th March 2017, the NWO-WOTRO funded project “Scaling-up nutrition-sensitive agriculture” was officially launched in Vientiane, Lao PDR. The launch was hosted by the National Institute of Public Health (NIOPH) and saw the involvement of a number of consortium partners and stakeholders from both countries. The main objectives of this event were to develop a shared understanding of the project, discuss expectations and make a joint plan of activities.

During the next four years, the team will conduct a transdisciplinary research aimed at generating evidence on the effectiveness of, and best way to scale-up, NSA amongst ethnic minorities in mountainous areas. The project will be implemented in Dong Xuan district, Phu Yen province in Vietnam and Nong district, Savannakhet province in Laos. The NSA project will build on past experiences of MCNV projects, and team up with the newly started CANTEEN and AFAS projects which are managed by MCNV. The research will be carried out in collaboration with partners from Lao PDR (NIOPH, NAFRI, NNC) and Vietnam (HUAF, ICHR, NIAPP) under the scientific supervision of the Athena Institute of the Vrije University Amsterdam and with cross-country facilitation by MCNV.

Partners in Lao PDR: National Institute of Public Health (NIOPH); National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (NAFRI); National Nutrition Center (NNC).

Partners in Vietnam: Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry (HUAF); Hue University of Medicine & Pharmacy, Inst Community Health Research (ICHR); National Institute of Agricultural Planning and Projection (NIAPP).

Approaches & tools for writing stories and learning from practice

15 to 16 May 2017
International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), the Hague, Netherlands

Facilitated by the Barefoot Guide Connection – www.barefootguide.org
Based on the experience of facilitating Writeshops for the development of Barefoot Guides

How can social change and development practitioners write interesting and thoughtful stories and case studies, to learn from and to communicate to others? How can they do this in collective ways that improve reflection and learning practices? A “Writeshop” is a creative and disciplined method for reflection, learning and documenting stories that are worth sharing. This workshop offers training to facilitators to design and facilitate such Writeshops.

Social change and development organisations and practitioners struggle to tell and to learn from their own rich stories and to communicate these to others. The few tools they have, in the dry formats for reporting to donors, are usually too simplistic and dry. Through the collective processes of writing the Barefoot Guides (see www.barefootguide.org) we have developed an approach and tools that enable, encourage and support field practitioners to reflect on stories collectively and to become writers of their own stories. In Writeshops, practitioners write to learn, and learn to write.

Purpose

This is a two-day course for inhouse facilitators, who support, or wish to support, learning processes in their teams or organisations, using writing as an approach to collectively surface, deepen and share practices in any field of development or social change, including key experiences, lessons and implications for the future. From this it becomes possible to develop written products for wider education.

Who should participate?

This Writeshop is for practitioners who (wish to) facilitate collective learning and writing processes in the teams they work with. They should have some experience in small group facilitation.

Our Course Approach

The participants will take home ideas and skills of how to effectively use several writing process designs and tools, like the Action Learning Cycle, the Outside/Inside Story, Listening at Three Levels and Free-writing, f
ocused on helping others to write stories and case studies. They will also learn about how to help practitioners deal with writer’s block and to more effectively learn and co-write with their peers.

A detailed toolkit will be provided to each participant, in hard and soft copy, containing guidance and handouts for use in their own Writeshops.

The Facilitators

▪ Doug Reeler from the Community Development Resource Association (CDRA)
▪ Akke Schuurmans from MCNV
▪ Cristina Temmink, independent facilitator

The Date

15 to 16 May 2017

The Venue

Classroom 4.25
International Institute of Social Studies (ISS)
Kortenaerkade 12, 2518 AX Den Haag, Netherlands
Google Maps link

If you would like to participate please click on this link to register.

Fees

The fee is 400 Euro, payable on registration.

The earlybird fee is 350 Euro if paid by 15 April 2017.

The fee money can be paid to:
Account Holder: MCNV
Number: IBAN NL90 TRIO 0338 5367 60
Reference: Writeshop

Inexpensive lunches can be bought at the cafetaria. Lunch is not included in the fee.

In March 2017 a delegation of the Vietnamese Film Institute and the European Foundation Joris Ivens visited the MCNV office in Dong Ha. During the visit MCNV director Guus Paardekooper led the delegation around the MCNV Museum. The organisations plan a partnership in 2018, when MCNV celebrates its 50^th anniversary and the Joris Ivens Event will take place. The Dutch Ambassador Nienke Trooster, director Nguyen Dinh Thi of the Hanoi Academy of Theater and Cinema and Nuffic/ NL Universities are enthusiastic about the cultural exchange and like to join the cooperating partners.

The delegation from the Joris Ivens Institute was invited to Vietnam by the Vietnam Film Institute. Both institutes intend to start projects researching the Joris Ivens archive materials, such as films, scripts, photos and film posters. The results of this research could be presented in November 2018 during an international Joris Ivens Event in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Joris Ivens in Vietnam

Film maker Joris Ivens worked in Vietnam between 1964 and 1970 on four movies, that play an important role in raising awareness of the Anti-War movement and their protest campaigns. Ivens arrived secretly in 1964 on invitation of the North-Vietnamese government. Two months later the USA started bombing the country. From the very beginning Ivens was in the unique position eye witnessing with his camera what he described as ‘the biggest colonial war the world ever has seen’. In two films unique excerpts can be seen of Ivens’ meetings in 1965 en 1968 with president Ho Chi Minh.

In the delegation also former MCNV’s Ad Spijkers, who was one of the driving forces behind the support actions to Vietnam, such as ‘Bikes for Vietnam’. He invited Jane Fonda, was involved in the visits of Kim Phuc to the Netherlands through the MCNV and of various Vietnamese professors, for instance the minister of Health Care.

With this visit of the Ivens Foundation to Vietnam a network of reliable stakeholders has been established, with whom the plans for 2018 will be worked out.

Read the full report of the visit of the delegation to the filming locations of Joris Ivens in Vietnam on www.ivens.nl

14^th April 2017, in collaboration with Hai Duong Medical and Technical University (HMTU), MCNV organized a workshop on introduction of Occupational Therapy (OT) Training Program for Bachelor level.

The workshop aims to increase general understanding about OT in contribution to quality of rehabilitation; to present and update progress of the OT education development project; and to introduce the pre-service training course of Bachelor of Rehabilitation specialized in OT at HMTU

80 physiotherapists and professors of rehabilitation profession from Ministry of Health (MOH), general hospitals, rehabilitation centers of Northern provinces, representatives from Ministry of Educational and Training (MOET), USAID and HI and especially lecturers and student of HMTU attended the workshop. All participants expected the BOT training program will be expressed broadly and recruit qualified students. The BOT training program at HMTU will be started this November. The same BOT course was kicked off already at the sister university of Medicine and Pharmacy in HCMC in March 2017.

Last Friday, May 12, 2017, the new ambassador of Vietnam in the Hague, Mrs Ngo Thi Hoa, visited MCNV office in Amsterdam. Mrs Hoa wants to intensify the relationship between Vietnam and the Netherlands, joining forces in collaboration. To realise this, she made a list of organisations to visit and MCNV was on the top of this list.