Case Story of Nguyen Thi Lien - Gender Based Project

Mrs. Nguyen Thi Lien (1974) who lives in Xom Chua unit of Chuc Ly hamlet in Ngoc Hoa commune, was a member of Ngoc Hoa community saving group in from January to July 2022. 

Picture 1: Mrs. Lien at the chicken cage.

The burden of making a living fell on Mrs. Lien’s shoulders when her husband passed away in early 2022 after three years of cancer suffering. She works hard to afford her two school-children and take care of her father-in-law. Her routine started with cleaning at a local restaurant in early morning, then working at the factory in the afternoon, and bamboo handcrafting in the evening.

Picture 2: Mrs. Lien’s current livestock of hens

From the saving group, she got 16 hens and kept them all survived after 8 months. The hens regularly provide eggs as a source of organic food to improve their daily meals. In addition, income from selling eggs saves her from wanting situations.

What she found most satisfied about this support was the daily supply of eggs.  She said: “When my work is overtime, I am a bit relieved to know that my children have eggs in their lunch after school.”

Written by: Saralen Tran
Date: Dec 2022

Counseling Case Story

On November 24th, 2022, NH033 came to the counseling room with a sad face. She was sent by her mentoring teacher for not completing her homework.  She started the conversation by telling about her lack of concentration in studying. It was understood that she missed most of her sessions while taking classes via Zoom during grades 7 and 8. At the time, she lost her motivation. As a takehome, she got some exercises to practice at home to improve her situation.

A week later, she complained that her assignments were not supported. Suddenly she paused for 15 minutes and then started to cry from within. Head down, she said, “I am very lonely!”.  She was sexually abused at the age of 7 by her cousin many times. This trauma was untold to her parents because she used to mistrust them. For that reason, she stayed alone by herself and did not show up close to anyone. Leaving the counseling room, she was very determined to talk to her parents about her past.

The following session was to discuss the strategy to improve her study. Still, she was not able to talk to her parents about her cause of expression. Six months later, her mom made a call to the counselor and asked what she should do next. She was in pain and regret for not knowing her daughter’s issues earlier.  And yet she was glad that her daughter passed the entrance exam to highschool. NH033 finally talked to her parents about the abuse and open her heart again.   

We have our own wealth now

Khuat Thi Lan was selected to be a client of the Cow Bank Project in Nui Be village, Chuong My district, Ha Noi in 2017. Her family had a chance to receive a cow and start working hard for their own cow herd. Her family had been raising cows and buffalos for other people in her village for daily incomes. They does not has a field to plant rice. Their house is built from a charity fund.

In 2018, the cow delivered for her a female calf. They were very excited about the result, seeing it a hope for a cowherd of themselves. In March 2020, she paid back her loan by giving the female calf to another family in her village. From receiving charity, by giving away a female calf she has become a helper of another family in need. She is now the owner of a productive cow and waiting for a calf to be delivered for them in the next six months. Confident enough, she and her husband have decided to use their saving money to invest in another breeding cow, which have formed a biggest wealth of her family.

Failure doesn’t mean end actually

Like other group members in Lang Cu village, Phuong Giao commune, Vo Nhai district, Thai Nguyen province, the family is a client of the Vo Nhai Income Generation Project, raising pig for income. The family has a small field to plant rice, which only needs one person to do the farming. The husband Dang Huu Ha are working far from home and therefore just comes home evey two months. The wife Dang Thi Hue is always busy with house-work, looking after the children and the animals. Hue is raising pigs and chickens to earn money. Even in the mountainous area, their house is more remote from other houses in the village. Hue is kept at home and not even meet anyone for weeks.

Since being selected as a client of the project, Hue has had many opportunities to meet with other people during the technical training classes and group meetings. Hue has realized that participating in the project has brought many good things. She now knows the reasons why the piglets are easy to get infected of diseases. She is even able to do the  vaccinating for the pigs that no one in her village did before. Hue also spends some time to meet with other clients in order to share information and discuss about issues with the pigs that need to be done about. She is now actively building good relationships with other people in the village.

So far after 2 years, Hue has received no income from selling a pig yet. She did not succeed with the first pig and with the second pig, either. At the moment, her third pig is getting pregnant. She believes that with the success of this time, she will have a prouctive pig for her family.

From trust to hope

Trieu Nho Phuc received a project cow at the end 2015, but unfortunately the cow got sick for several weeks. He lost his excitement and wanted to return cow in order to step out of the project. Even worse, he lost his confidence thinking that raising cow wasn’t easy as he had thought. After two year with the encouragement of AM’s Project Officer and the well supports of the local veterinarian, the cow delivered for his family the first male calf. A year later in 2018 he and his wife received another male calf from the cow with big smiles. Phuc and his wife have regained confidence and trust in the supports of the project managemetn committee. The couple is now looking to developing their own cowherd, which will help them renovate their old house.

Cow raising is family work

Mrs. Trinh Thi Quyen in Nui Be village (Chuong My district, Ha Noi) received a project cow in 2017. She shares that her family is very happy with their cow because the mother cow is going to deliver a calf for them.  When we came to visit her family, we could feel a good atmosphere of in her family. Her son told that their parent went to work very early in the morning, so he and his sister fed the cow with the grass which the parent had cut from the field the day before. Sometime in summer, his older sister also takes the cow to the field near their house for several hours while he playing around with the other children from his village. Quyen is very proud of her children of their helping looking after the cow, which she hope it can teach her children about the value of labour as a family. Each member of the family can do a little work and contribute to the improvement of the family living conditions.

“Our Students looked very contented and happy in their class”

There were totally 14 workshops on reproductive health held for 690 secondary school children for the last 4 months. The workshops were conducted according to grades and each session is averagely about 45 students for 2 hour length. For students of grade 6 and 7, the workshops covered different topics for boys and girls as separated groups.

Mr. Nguyen Xuan Dung, Nam Phuong Tien A secondary school headmaster, admitted the lack of sex education in their curriculum. Therefore, he very much appreciated what we brought into his students. Also, Mr. Dung indicated that school teachers reported to him that they saw changes in their students by their observation just after few sessions. I (Saralen) asked Mrs. Nguyen Thu Hoa, a teacher in charge of school extra-curriculum, what they were. She said “Our students looked very contented and happy in their class; I think because they had space to talk about things which are considered private and sensitive and they were able to put their unnamed concerns about their reproductive health in words. At home, their parents avoid talking about sex because they don’t know how. At class, their teachers told them to ‘learn by themselves’ because teachers are not professional trained.”

Her answer brought me back to our first workshops, it was when Mrs. Hoa gave us a surprise look “How could you keep them stay still for about 2 hours?” It was her who stood at the back of classroom watching me at the first session and also her, later took initiative to join in our teaching session. She helped to calm students and supervised group discussion, and distributed leaning materials…

Life is more fun with Women Club

Last December, there were 2 women club meetings have been conducted for 54 women in Hanh Bo and Nui Be hamlets. Followed by the session on “Women’s Value and Identity” during the 20/10 Campaign (Vietnamese Women’s Day), these meetings were associated with games, sharing personal concerns and self-reflection. Interactive conversation and participatory discussion allow everyone take their part of speech.

These women love to be with women clubs. They first thought the meeting would be boring like the other usual formats in which they had to sit down and listen for whole session. Some decided to stay home when invited and others showed no interest at the beginning. However, what happened made them surprised. As they had chance to participate in games and felt accepted while sharing their thoughts, most of them just wanted to stay longer after the session. During workshop, some even gave a live stream for those who stayed home could follow and felt sorry for those who missed the session.

Mrs. Hoang Thi Xuan, 49 years old, brought her grandson to the women club in Nhan Ly hamlet. She could not leave him at home since nobody was there to take care of him. She said “The topic covered tonight is very interesting. I am glad that I can come. Before coming to the club, I hold strong anger towards my neighbor who humiliated me at the market. When you (Saralen) asked me to smash an apple while speaking out what in my mind, I did and it’s was a relief to my negative emotion. I am happy and laughed a lot.” The other women added on “We will sleep well tonight and look forward for more meetings like this!”