Current
Programs
Integrated Development Project in Muong Te district, Lai Chau province
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Children in their classroom in Bum Nua Primary School |
Muong Te is a poor
and remote district of Lai Chau, a newly set-up province in the far
north-west of Vietnam. Amongst the poorest provinces in the country, Lai
Chau also boasts the largest diversity of ethnic minority peoples, with
20 different ethnic minorities living together in the province.
The average income per person is just $168 a year,
far less than the national average of $480. Local people depend on
agriculture and forestry as their main livelihood; however an increasing
population and land use regulations are reducing the amount of arable
land. Poor infrastructure, health care, and education quality also
hamper the continued development of the area.
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Moc Chau - Son La
1985 |
Bum Nua health
clinic |
At the market in
Muong Te |
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CWS’s Integrated Development Project has set the goal
of improving the quality of life for ethnic people, through improving
the quality of education and health services and providing community
access to water supply. Specific activities include teacher training,
classroom repairs, construction of student boarding facilities, and the
provision of teaching aids.
In addition, CWS is providing communal
health centers with primary care medicines and equipment, and supporting
additional training for medical staff.
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Institutions and households are
receiving access to clean water and hygienic latrines, and participating
in community health and hygiene education campaigns. Water user
associations are set up with
training provided on operation and maintenance of water facilities. The
Muong Te district People’s Committee is also being supported in project
and financial management, ensuring project continuity and ownership. The
project’s first phase will target 2 communes, and expand to other
communes in later phases.
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La Hu minority children |
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Learning the alphabet in Phieng Kham
kindergarten
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CWS staff interview La Hu people |
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Project Activities
Through the integrated Health – Education Development Support Project in
Muong Te district, in 2006-2008 CWS has done:
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Constructing kindergartens, upgrading classrooms and providing equipment for existing kindergartens
and primary schools.in Bum Nua and Bum To communes
• Constructing boarding quarters and clean water and sanitation facilities
for the junior secondary
school in Na He village.
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Providing the junior secondary school with badly needed sports
equipment.
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Constructing and upgrading rest-rooms for health stations
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Constructing water supply systems for health stations
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Supplying medical equipment and cabinets to health stations
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Providing 9-month training courses for new nurses in 40 villages.
• Providing medicine cabinet and first-aid training for kindergarten and
primary school teachers
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Constructing model rest-room facilities for Bum Nua and Bum To communes.
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And conducting community health and hygiene education activities
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Children learning in Bum To Primary
school (old) |
Children playing outside the old classroom in Muong Te |
New
beds for boarding school, Muong Te, Lai Chau
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New
kindergarten, Nam Xa, Bum To, Muong Te, Lai Chau |
Training for Village Health Workers
CWS, in cooperation with the Muong Te district health department, is
supporting training for 50 new village health workers. Currently, the
district only has 125 qualified health workers to cover 163 villages and
45,000 people. The district health department is eager to improve the
quality of the public health network in this remote and mountainous
area, and aims to place at least one qualified health worker in every
village. The training participants are selected from the local community
and stay in the training center for the 6 month course. After the
course, the health workers return to their villages to provide more
professional services to those in need.
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Checking health in clinic |
Kindergarten children having lunch in
Muong Te
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Food for hungry ethnic minority students
In Nov 2006, CWS began school feeding and take home rice rations for kindergarten and lower secondary schools in Muong Te district, Lai Chau province. The idea was initiated by local parents who said that one of their main reasons for not sending children to school was lack of food. The feeding activities are currently being piloted in one kindergarten where 30 students are provided with a midday meal of rice soup, and 2 lower secondary schools where 95 students are provided with 10kg of rice/month. Parents and teachers are active in the activities and participate in the purchasing, cooking, and distribution of the food.
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Evaluation of the project’s household latrine constructions during 2006-2007
During 2006-2007, a total of 70 household latrines were built in the villages of Bum Nua commune. The evaluation of the latrine construction was conducted by the project management unit of the district Health Department in order to assess the activity results, initial impacts, as well as to plan for the expansion of this activity to include more households, villages and communes. The results of the evaluation have been shared in a workshop with participation of relevant project stakeholders. In this workshop, a small network of village IEC collaborators was set up in the first 5 villages in Bum Nua commune for the promotion of construction of latrines for the households as well as for promotion of personal and environmental hygiene practices.
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Checking
health and giving medicines to local people in Nam Xa village,
Muong Te, Lai Chau |
New toilet for Na He school, Muong Te, Lai Chau |
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