Raising awareness, changing gender stereotypes

To create conditions for ethnic minority women to improve their status and promote their role in the family and society, from the end of 2022 to present, the Provincial Women's Union has actively promoted the contents of Project 8 "Implementing gender equality and solving urgent issues for women and children" (referred to as Project 8) to raise awareness, change prejudices, care for material and spiritual life, protect and care for women and children, and achieve gender equality goals.

Diversified forms of propaganda

Ms. Le Thi Hai Yen - President of the Provincial Women's Union said: Project 8 is one of 10 component projects under the national target program - socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas, period 2021 - 2030, phase 1: 2021 - 2025. Recognizing the significance and importance of the project for women and children, as the implementing agency, according to the assignment of the Provincial People's Committee, closely following the directives and instructions of the Central Presidium of the Vietnam Women's Union, the Resolution of the Provincial People's Council, the Standing Committee of the Provincial Women's Union has actively and proactively built a steering mechanism to create unity in implementation. Accordingly, the Provincial Women's Union focuses on propaganda work on Zalo groups, fanpages and the Union's electronic information page to update and share information to cadres and members. At the same time, strengthen training for district and commune-level Union officials and village officials in the area to implement the contents of Project 8 such as communication planning skills, gender equality (GEM)...

Cadres and women members of communes benefiting from the training program

Up to now, the Association has organized 8 training conferences to guide the implementation of Project 8, guide the establishment of the "Leaders of Change" club, a trusted address in the community, and a community communication team for district, commune, and village officials to implement the project. At the same time, it has conducted surveys, collected information, reviewed and grasped information and needs among members, women, ethnic minority people, and students at 5 secondary schools on knowledge and propaganda work, advocacy for gender equality, prevention and control of domestic violence; models of economic empowerment, promotion of gender equality; on the issue of ensuring the voice and participation of women and children, the issue of gender mainstreaming; and contents related to the establishment of the "Leaders of Change" club. At the same time, the Association is launching a contest to create communication products "Listen to your children talk" and continue to organize training to transfer related contents to district and commune officials...

Towards gender equality in ethnic minority areas

As one of the communes benefiting from the project, Ms. Nguyen Thi Giang - President of the Women's Union of My Thanh commune (Ham Thuan Nam) happily said: The whole commune has 191 members/200 women. Most of them are Rai ethnic group, their economic life still depends on slash-and-burn farming, picking bamboo shoots, and picking mushrooms in the forest, so they face many difficulties, leading to limited awareness and less proactive participation in common activities and movements. Therefore, the project implementation is an opportunity to strongly promote and create changes to improve the quality of life, fundamentally resolving inequality in many areas for women and girls. In addition, the Union officials themselves are also shared many good practices in propaganda, maintaining and developing the model, helping members more effectively...

Change and diversify communication forms to make it easier for members and women to access and bring high efficiency.

According to the plan, in 2023, the Provincial Women's Union will establish and maintain 20 community communication teams; 5 "Leaders of Change" clubs; 3 trusted addresses in the community; organize policy dialogues and training courses to improve skills and communication on gender equality... in extremely disadvantaged villages in ethnic minority and mountainous areas in the 4 districts of Tanh Linh, Ham Thuan Bac, Ham Thuan Nam and Bac Binh. Along with that, build and develop communication materials; monitor and evaluate to improve the capacity of ethnic minority female cadres and gender equality capacity for village elders and prestigious people, build a safe living environment for women and children...

Project 8 is the first and gender-specific project included in the national target program. In Binh Thuan, the project is implemented in 20 villages/12 communes in 4 districts: Tanh Linh, Bac Binh, Ham Thuan Bac and Ham Thuan Nam.

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