O.N.E - December 2008
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Transcript of O.N.E - December 2008
December 2008
Co
Ver
: Chi
ldre
n in
Xop
Cha
o, n
ghe
an
/ a
idan
B. d
ocke
ry
When I met Van Thi Minh Chau,
I was struck by her athletic physique,
gentle smile, and the decisive look in
her eyes. Community development is
hard work, and even harder in some of
the country’s poorest areas: the remote
mountainous communities, which she
visits at least once a month, for up
to two weeks at a time. It seems that
Chau’s sensibility and personality
suits the job: she has been managing
l ivelihoods projec t s with ethnic
minority people for 15 years now in
several provinces, including Nghe An,
her home province. She is Oxfam Hong
Kong’s very first project officer in
Hanoi and the longest-serving staff
member there.
Chau remembers the first time she
went to Xop Nhi, a Thai minority village
in Nghe An. It was 2002, and the living
conditions were extremely basic. Even
getting there was difficult: she had to
walk up and down the slopes, a walking
stick in one hand, a knife in the other in
order to clear the paths. Most villagers
kept animals under their wooden
homes built on stilts, and they drank
unfiltered water from distant springs
in the mountains, the same water that
animals used. Disease was rampant.
There was a sub-standard school,
with inadequately trained teachers and
very basic facilities, so many parents
did not think it was worth it to spend
the little money they had to send their
children there. Instead, many boys and
girls helped out in the fields. Either
way, the young generation was losing
out on a good education.
“It was the first time people in Xop
Nhi had the chance to work with a
development organisation,” Chau said.
“We talked a lot with the residents,
collecting their opinions, and making a
project plan together to ensure that it
was effective and efficient. Oxfam had
to be very flexible. No single model of
good practice can work everywhere,
especially in different ethnic minority
communities, and the most important
thing in any community-based project
is for the residents to come to decisions
suitable for themselves.” To Chau,
working with minority communities
requires good listening, patience, an
open mind, and an understanding of
traditions.
The Xop Nhi community built a
fresh water system with a filter, plus a
new primary school. Oxfam gave small
Van Thi Minh Chauloans for women to raise pigs, provided
seeds and technical assistance for
fruit orchards, and organised teacher
training. As coordinator, Chau involved
people all along the way: it is Oxfam’s
practice that people participate in the
entire process of planning, construction,
implementation, maintaining and
monitoring.
“At first, people asked why they did
not receive payment for the work they
did in Oxfam’s project, because they are
normally paid in similar government-
funded projects. I reminded them that
they are the ones who benefit from
and own the construction, and are also
responsible for the maintenance and
sustainability.”
When Chau went to Khe Nap,
another village in the same district and
also with a new school and water system,
it was clear how much she is cherished
and respected. The villagers, this time
of the Khmu minority, extended a warm
welcome, giving her warm hugs. “Chau
is very considerate in her job,” a Khmu
woman said. “She inspired us to get
involved from the beginning.”
Van Thi Minh Chau is a Coordinator of Oxfam Hong Kong’s livelihood projects across Vietnam. She is based in Hanoi.
Phuong Chi is a reporter with the Vietnam News Agency.
By Phuong Chi
Chau (left) and villager in nghe an
Chau (first row, second from left), phuong Chi (third from left), oxfam Hong Kong colleagues and media personnel on a field trip in nghe an.
Oxfam + Vietnam – 20 Year Anniversary Van Thi Minh Chau – Oxfam’s longest-serving staff member People’s Committee: “Let People Understand” Ethnic Minority Women Doing Business Preparing for Disasters: Village Radio & Mezzanine Floors Together for Change
Stop Poverty, Stop Climate Change Gansu, Hong Kong, Poland: Collecting Colours Global petition: www.oxfam.org/en/campaigns/climatechange
Tuong Duong
is a district where
t h e m a j o r i t y
of the population is poor and of
ethnic minority. Oxfam Hong Kong
has been supporting development
projects here since 1993. They have
been working with impoverished
communities to improve the trans-
portation infrastructure, irrigation
systems, water supply, health care, school
construction, sustainable agriculture
and more. On average, the financial
support Oxfam contributes every
year to this district amounts to about
1.8 billion VND (about US$100,000). This
is not a substantial sum of money, yet
the benefits are invaluable. To me, the
most important benefit is that people
in Tuong Duong are now practicing
environmentally-friendly methods in
their agriculture that are increasing
people’s income and helping ensure a
more sustainable way of life. Another
positive result is that, in general,
people are really involved in their
communities now. They speak up and
help make all the decisions needed in
the implementation, maintenance and
long-term monitoring of the community
development projects.
In your opinion, what are the
identifying characteristics of Oxfam’s
projects?
The People’s Committee really values
Oxfam’s work methods. Community
participation is at the core, and the
projects are always carried out in a clear,
concrete way. A survey always comes
first, to carefully assess people’s needs
and concerns. Then, in the planning
process, people have the chance to
discuss how best to implement the
projects, to rank the priorities, to
allocate work assignments, and in the
end, every household is aware of their
rights and obligations. Thanks to this
method, people understand the here
and now, and they trust that there
will be many benefits in the long run.
This firm foundation is important for
sustainability.
The Women’s Union in the district
set up a weaving group, and the
leader Luong Thi Lai recalls that at the
beginning, the Union had to personally
visit each family so that the women
could be persuaded to join. The group
started with 20 members who were
each given VND 60,000 (equivalent
to about US$6 at that time) to buy
thread. Looms and sewing machines
were also provided, because in the past,
the women used to only sew by hand,
which took weeks to finish a single item.
Participants attended advanced training
in designing, sewing and dyeing led
by American and Thai experts in the
textile industry, and soon had options
to indigo blue, which had been the only
natural dye available before. Another
component was training in business
management and basic marketing.
The two-year project has long since
finished. Through the experience of
interacting with tourists who visited
Yen Thanh to learn more about ethnic
minority cultures and to purchase
handicrafts directly in the village, the
Thai women built up a business network
with the travel companies which
arranged the tours. Over the years,
the women have developed a client
list; they now run a small handicrafts
business by themselves. The women’s
products are now for sale at shops in Ho
Chi Minh City, Hanoi and other urban
areas, as well as through stores via Craft
Link, a non-profit organisation in Hanoi
that works with about 40 such crafts
groups and participates in international
trade fairs.
About half of the families in the
village now have at least one woman
in the weaving group. The woven
products bring in an annual income of
around VND2-3 million (about US$120-
180) for about 150 households. Families
feel that the future is brighter, and
one indication is that the village is
now sending 15 students to university,
something they only ever dreamed
about in the past.
To Oxfam, another success i s
that a traditional custom has been
preserved, with the assistance of
modern technology such as sewing
machines, and with current business
and marketing strategies, too.
Thanh Ha is a social affairs and development journalist with Vietnam Post, a Vietnamese-language newspaper.
Photos by Oxfam Hong Kong
Let peopLe understand
Ethnic minority women
doing business
Does Oxfam’s way of working
conform to the state’s current policy of
promoting grassroots participation, and
does it help promote gender equality,
too?
Oxfam’s participatory process fully
accords with state policy – it is a process
through which people have the right to
understand, consider and discuss all the
issues affecting them. It helps people
know what they want, what they should
do, how to do it effectively, and that
the whole community benefits, as well
as the individual.
With gender equality, yes, there is
progress: many Tuong Duong women
are more confident and empowered
now, thanks to Oxfam’s way of working.
Typically, it had been the men who
made the final decisions in the family
and community, but nowadays, women
have more say. The new women’s
groups have proven particularly useful:
the solidarity makes the women’s
strength even stronger.
Can Oxfam’s participatory method
serve as a model for development
projects in Tuong Duong and elsewhere,
and in general, what issues should get
more focus in the future?
Oxfam’s integrated, participatory
and community-based model should
certainly be promoted to improve
people’s living standards, yet it is
impossible to apply the entire Oxfam
model to all projects in Tuong Duong
or in Nghe An Province as a whole,
due to differences in nature, target
and scale.
Two issues deserve more support
in the future. First , some of the
infrastructure that was supported in
the past could use maintaining and
even upgrading; investment and capital
is needed. Secondly, although many
people have worked their way out of
poverty through projects supported by
international agencies such as Oxfam,
58.2 per cent of families in Tuong Duong
remain impoverished, especially in
the mountainous areas of the district.
More resources need to be extended
to these remote regions, and the local
government there needs support, too.
Human resources are very limited, with
district employees in charge of many
different projects at once.
Luong Thanh Hai, of the Thai ethnic minority, is President of the People’s Committee in Tuong Duong District in Nghe An. Cao Cuong, Editor of Investment Review Magazine, conducted the interview on behalf of Oxfam Hong Kong. Photos by Pham Tung Lam and courtesy of Luong Thanh Hai.
In the 1990s, four out of five people
in the village of Yen Thanh went
hungry for much of the year. Nestled
in the mountains of Nghe An Province,
Yen Thanh is home to about 630 Thai
minority people who had been totally
dependent on agriculture for their
living. Yet, because the area is prone
to floods and drought, harvests would
fluctuate, income too, and people’s
food supply. The poorest families would
not have any rice for several months
of the year, eating only yams and
tubers. Women led especially difficult
lives: they had little say in the family
and in the community, yet had a huge
workload of farming, collecting water,
running the household, and taking care
of the children, who typically could
not attend school because they were
needed to work in the fields.
Yen Thanh women are skilled
weavers, and in 1996, a two-year
project was launched in the village
to rejuvenate the Tho Cam tradition
that had gone dormant. Tho Cam is a
particular kind of weaving that uses
colourful threads on a small loom, and
the project focus would be primarily
with the poorest women, who needed
the income the most.
By Thanh Ha
an interview with Luong Thanh HaiAs President of the People’s Committee, how do you
evaluate the impact of Oxfam’s projects on the socio-
economic development of Tuong Duong district?
Village Radio and the Mezzanine FloorBy Viet Thuong
Truong Dang Chuong may be seen as
a small-town, or in this case, small-village
journalist. He lives in the mountains of
Quang Tri, a province in the central
highlands, where he manages the local
radio station.
His small village of Ha Loc, with
about 500 residents, frequently floods.
People there have experienced many
devastating ones, like in 1989, when
two people died and in 1999, when the
entire harvest was lost and everyone
went hungry.
In the past, news bulletins warning
people about floods and other disasters
were delivered by the provincial
authorities during the rainy season, and
then in turn to districts and communes,
but not to the small villages like Ha Loc.
The bulletins were lengthy and rather
general, and often irrelevant to life in
remote areas. For instance, alerts about
coastal waters being too rough during
storms have no meaning for a rice
farmer in the mountains. People in Ha
Loc had no disaster prevention plan.
Chuong was one of 40 people who
completed communication workshops
supported by Oxfam Hong Kong.
In particular, they learned skills in
editing: how to take the district and
provincial news bulletins and extract
the information relevant and useful
TOGETHER FOR CHANGEOvercoming colonialism, surviving a
long, debilitating war with the United
States, and coping with frequent natural
disasters, the people and government
of Vietnam have nonetheless created
better conditions for the development
of their country over the past twenty
years.
Significant socio-economic advances
occurred after 1986, when Vietnam
began to introduce doi moi , or
liberalisation, in many sectors. This
included the NGO sector. Two years
later, in 1988, Oxfam Hong Kong began
working in the country, primarily with
farmers and their families, and primarily
in remote areas where poverty is the
most severe.
Although the national poverty
rate fell from over 70 per cent in the
mid-1980s to about 16 per cent in
2007, poverty remains an everyday
reality among many of ethnic minority
people who tend to live in the inland,
mountainous regions of the country. As
Vietnam develops, the gaps between
rich and poor people, between urban
and rural populations, and between
the Kinh and ethnic minorities are all
widening.
Oxfam Hong Kong’s work with
Vietnamese people actually began in
the mid 1970s in Hong Kong, where
the agency is based. In the 1970s and
80s, over 100,000 Vietnamese arrived
in Hong Kong by boat, and Oxfam not
only helped secure better conditions
for them while they lived here, but also
realised that an integrated response
for their local communities. Nowadays,
when Chuong is in front of his amplifier
in Ha Loc, he might be delivering news
on a storm ahead and how best to
prepare for it, or maybe the current
prices for crops. He makes sure that he
uses words that are easy to understand
and applicable to the local context.
People listen to Chuong. On top of the
radio work, he is also the village chief.
When the O Giang River flooded
recently, for example, families living at
the water’s edge received very specific
information from the broadcasts. They
knew the exact water level, and not
just by a number, as Chuong made
sure that the most at-risk families were
made aware of the changing situation.
“The Phuong family need to prepare,”
he would say, and “the Xuy’s need to
be ready if the rains continue” and
so forth.
The warning system reaches every
home in Ha Loc, the army is on standby
to help people evacuate if necessary,
and new regulations require each
family to keep a seven-day reserve of
food, water, fuel and a back-up light
source. The community of Ha Loc has
also adopted the slogan ‘a little bit
of prevention is better than a lot of
relief aid’, and it seems to be working.
People’s awareness of how to protect
their homes and livelihoods in the face
of floods has improved drastically.
For instance, during the flood season,
more people are choosing fish farming
over land cultivation, as the risks are
considerably lower.
In addition to the better com-
munications system and farming
alternatives, some of the residents in
Ha Loc now have new small mezzanine
floors in their homes. In the past, no one
in the village had these floors, or even
heard of them. Nowadays, the people
see the concrete floors as a huge help.
When floods are forecast, villagers
can easily move their grain and other
goods up away from the rising water,
and if need be, the family can also take
shelter there. People feel so much more
secure. (Oxfam Hong Kong is working
alongside the Vietnam Red Cross in this
phase of the project.)
Four communes are currently
benefiting from these projects, but the
authorities plan to extend the model for
the entire district, and perhaps even the
whole province of Quang Tri.
Viet Thuong is a journalist working for Tuoi Tre, a daily newspaper for youth published in Vietnamese. He is based in Quang Tri. Photo by Quoc Tuan.
of over US$21 million in 30 countries.
Vietnam and China share many
common characteristics , socially,
economically and politically, and Oxfam
Hong Kong supports exchange visits
every year between its programmes in
these countries, as well as among other
countries across Asia. Oxfam Hong
Kong is one of the thirteen members
of Oxfam International, with anti-
poverty programmes in more than 100
countries.
This small book of 20 stories is just
a glimpse of Oxfam’s work. By bringing
together these stories, we hope to
enable readers to learn more about
the lives of people facing poverty, as
we ourselves have been learning as we
reflect on our experiences during the
process of creating this book.
Please listen to the voices of poor
people living in remote regions of
Vietnam; sense how they have enabled
themselves to build a better, fairer life.
Please listen to the voices of members
of community groups, people who
have been essential and important
driving forces in effecting change. The
voices may be of an ethnic minority
farmer, a woman who has had access
to a loan for the first time, a women’s
union leader, a government official, a
village journalist, a community worker,
an Oxfam colleague…. They all have
something in common: strength and
passion for change.
I myself have been moved by the
significant improvement in the lives
of poor people through my several
to the flow of refugees and economic
migrants must include supporting socio-
economic development within Vietnam
itself. Initial projects in the country
from 1988 focused on agriculture and
income, such as irrigation, forestry,
landmine awareness, and drinking
water systems in several provinces, such
as Ha Bac, Hai Hung, Nghe An, Quang
Binh, Quang Tri and Thanh Hoa. In
1993, permission was granted for the
agency to open an office in Hanoi, and
projects extended to Lang Son, where
women were supported to develop
their handicrafts. Since 1997, Oxfam’s
approach has been to concentrate and
integrate work in Ha Tinh, Nghe An and
Quang Tri, with a priority to assist ethnic
minorities and women. This sustainable
community development work includes
preparing people to cope with natural
disasters, while humanitarian response
work continues nationwide when
disaster strikes.
In the past 20 years, Oxfam Hong
Kong has supported over 450 projects
in 936 communities, directly benefiting
more than 800,000 poor people. Another
arm of Oxfam’s work includes policy
research, campaigning and advocacy
seeking high level, international policy
change on such issues as landmines
and fair trade rules. Today, Vietnam
remains one of Oxfam Hong Kong’s
largest country programmes (second
only to China) in terms of financial
commitments and human resources: in
2007/08, the agency contributed over
US$3.3 million in Vietnam, out of a total
visits to Vietnam since the 1990s,
and I look forward to the day when
absolute poverty can be eradicated in
the country.
On behalf of Oxfam Hong Kong, I
can emphatically say that we are proud
to be in partnership with the people
featured in this book and thousands of
others in the country. We thank them
for having confidence in us, as we
believe in them, and we hope readers
of this book can sense this trust that
underlies this partnership.
John Sayer is the Director General of Oxfam Hong Kong
together for Change (in Vietnamese) marks oxfam Hong Kong's 20th year of working in Vietnam. preface by John sayer.
In the 1980s, oxfam Hong Kong released three reports on the injustices facing people from Vietnam in Hong Kong. the first report was published in full by the South China Morning Post on 7 May 1986.
nguyen Cao Cuong
By John Sayer
Co
Ver
: Chi
ldre
n in
Xop
Cha
o, n
ghe
an
/ a
idan
B. d
ocke
ry
Hong Kong
OXFAM ACTION A global petition against climate change:
http://www.oxfam.org/en/campaigns/climatechange
OXFAM BOOKSFrom Poverty to Power
With up-to-date research, human stories, statistics, and
compelling arguments, this 540-page book from Oxfam
International presents the causes and effects of poverty and
inequality, the massive human and economic costs, and many
realistic solutions.
• Written by Duncan Green, head of research at Oxfam Great Britain
• Foreword by Amartya Sen, economist, and Honorary Advisor,
Oxfam International
• In English, with summaries available
in French, Portuguese and Spanish
• Published by Oxfam International
• June, 2008
• ISBN 978-0-85598-593-6
Download the whole book at:
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/
resources/fp2p/about.html
OXFAM in the NEWS Harmonious teen sky
Four teenagers of South
Asian descent talk about their
experiences of living in Hong
Kong on Metro Radio, FM
99.7, every Saturday until 13
December.
UNISON, an organisation that
works for ethnic minority rights
in Hong Kong, has facilitated this
radio show called Harmonious
TEEN Sky.
Radio DJ Meggie will be
inter viewing Keran Hayat ,
Hardeep Singh, Samira Bibi and Sungsanga Jutharat, as well as
other guests in issues facing ethnic minorities in Hong Kong.
UNISON has been supported by Oxfam Hong Kong.
UNISON (852) 2789 3236, www.unison.org.hk
MOKUNGOxfam Hong Kong publishes this
bi-monthly magazine in Traditional
Chinese. Mokung, which means both
“no poverty” and “infinity”, highlights
a different aspect of development in
each issue. The Editor is Tung Tsz-kwan.
The current edition looks at food and
inflation in Hong Kong. The next edition
will focus on Climate Change.
To subscribe: www.oxfam.org.hk/public/bookstore/?lang=big5
Mokung is online at www.oxfam.org.hk/public/
contents/category?cid=1017&lang=big5
ONEO.N.E – Oxfam News E-
magazine – is uploaded monthly
at www.oxfam.org.hk/one.
To receive a copy in your
inbox, please subscribe – it is
free.
To subscribe: www.oxfam.org.hk/one/subscribe.html
17th Floor, 28 Marble road, northpoint, Hong Kong
o.n.e is also on-line: www.oxfam.org.hk/one
editor: Madeleine Marie slavick ([email protected])
NewPartnerOrganisations
Every day, Oxfam Hong Kong works
alongside hundreds of groups around the
world, from small NGOs to international
bodies, from government departments of
developing countries to community groups
based in Hong Kong. Here are 10 ‘partner
organisations’ that we are supporting for
the first time.
www.oxfam.org.hk
BEIJING •16-Day Anti-Violence against Women Campaign Coordination Group •Department of Sociology, College of Humanity and Development, China Agriculture University •Villages and Towns Construction Forum
GUANGXI •Ethnic Minority Affairs Bureau of Ningming County •Ethnic Minority Affairs Bureau of Shangzi County •Ethnic Affairs Commission of Nanning City
GUIZHOU •Guizhou Association for Community Construction and Rural Governance
YUNNAN •Civil Affairs Department of Xundian County •Dongchuan County Poverty Alleviation Office •Kunming International Non-Government Organization Society
Zhang Zhi-rong and his artwork
She describes herself as a ‘painting
writer’ and uses the penname ‘Gukzik’,
which translates as ‘collecting colours’.
When the artist and educator from Hong
Kong traveled to Gansu, one of the poorest
parts in all of China, she inspired dozens of
children there to reflect on their drought-
stricken lives hard hit by climate change,
and to colour the future. She asked primary
school students to put a chocolate ball in
their mouths, to imagine it as Earth, and
that their body temperature was melting
the world away. She then led them to
Gukzik says, “I was very moved by the
drawing of 12-year-old Zhang Zhi-rong, a
quiet student in Jingyuan, Gansu. Cracked
soil is framed in the Chinese character for
‘field’ or ‘farmland’, and around it are bare
trees and stones: a dry Earth floating in
a blue cosmos. When I returned to Hong
Kong, I felt the urge to echo. I duplicated
his original drawing, and paired it with my
melting landscape of skyscrapers along
Victoria Harbour that is framed in a similar
structure as Zhi-rong’s. The time of day is
8p.m., when every night in Hong Kong,
Bangladesh), and higher sea-levels (all
around the world). Who is responsible for
these emissions? It is primarily the people
living in wealthier, industrialised societies
of the world, including in Hong Kong.
“I feel a big responsibility in participating
in Oxfam International’s Canvas for Change
project: Hot City, Dry Field will go to the
UN Climate Change Conference in Poland
this month. Will the canvases (1.2m x 1.8m)
really speak to some of the world’s key
decision-makers in this climate crisis? Will
they really speak adequately for the people
I met in Gansu who struggle every day?
Zhang Zhi-rong (middle row, far left) and his classmates and teacher in Gansu - Lau Gukzik at far
Hot City, dry Field by Lau Gukzik and Zhang Zhi-rong
COLLECTiNG COLOuRs, FOR CHANGE draw what Gansu, and the globe, was
experiencing in climate change: 35 of the
52 children expressed a wish for rain.
Water is scarce in Gansu. Lakes are
drying up. Rainfall has decreased. People
need to dig as far down as 100 meters
to find water. Maize is shorter, plums
are smaller, sunflowers hang their heads.
Farmers in Gansu, as anywhere, are hugely
dependent on rainfall for their living, and
they need to be able to ‘read’ the weather,
but with the unpredictable, changing
climate, they cannot. Instead, sandstorms
are the norm and deserts are encroaching
their farmland.
there is a huge and wasteful display: lights
blink, colours flash, and beams extend
from high-rises all the way across the sea.
Through the pair of canvases which I title
Hot City, Dry Field, I want to remind people
that the wealth we enjoy today has come at
a price, a price that the people in Gansu and
other poor communities are paying.
“Is it too hot, or too rich? Increasing
emissions of greenhouse gases has raised
the earth’s average temperature to such
an extent that we now experience extreme
weather conditions: more drought (like
in Gansu), warmer winters (like in Hong
Kong), more storms (like in Myanmar and
“I join Oxfam Hong Kong in their ‘Stop
Poverty! Stop Climate Change!’ campaign:
www.oxfam.org.hk/climatechange. I ask
you to join, too.”
Gukzik Lau has exhibited in the UK, USA, Canada, Switzerland, Japan and Hong Kong, and her art is in numerous private and public collections worldwide. Trained as a printmaker, she currently uses modern print ing machines, such as the offset pr inter, photocopier, fax machine and digital output. She teaches at the Hong Kong Art School and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Oxfam acknowledges the support of Fingerprint Ltd, Wong San Mun and Tin Lai Man.