“Empowering women through knowledge co-creation” was selected as one of “50 stories of Australian alumni’s contributions to Vietnam” at the Australian Alumni Symposiums 2023, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Australia-Vietnam diplomatic relations.
In the Symposium, Center for Knowledge Co-creation and Development Research (CKC) presented its three initiated development projects funded by Australian Government through Australian Alumni Grants Fund and Australian Volunteers Program. The three projects converge on the knowledge co-creation journey in empowering women albeit through raising women’s voices on issues affecting their community through multistakeholder dialogues, exploring their existing capitals to improve their lives, or breaking omnipresent gender stereotypes to promote gender equality.
Knowledge co-creation is central to community development initiatives implemented by CKC, especially for women’s groups. The Symposium is a valuable opportunity for CKC to share our sustainability experiences with Australian and Vietnamese development practitioners and organisations, widen our professional network, and enrich our development journey.
Photos: Australian Alumni in Vietnam
Returning to Laos in early April, CKC had the opportunity to work in Champasak and Salavan, located in the South of Lao PDR. Our team of 11 Vietnamese and Laotian members conducted social research in 12 communities in three districts of these two provinces.
With the “co-working” philosophy, CKC continues to collaborate with Laotian surveyors who have accompanied CKC since the first trip to Laos and continuously supported us to come closer to communities and deeply learn about their cultural, religious, and community values, especially the Phu Thai and Ta Oy ethnic communities.
(Vinh Tran)
After more than a month of completing the primary survey with over 700 households in 63 residential groups from 22 wards of Hue city, the research project entitled “Biased Beliefs, Motivated Reasoning, and Consumer Valuation of Vegetable Labels in Vietnam” project carried out a follow-up survey in February and March 2023.
Approximately 600 participating households were interviewed via phone with questions that prompted them to recall the experiment associated and unassociated with their food safety beliefs.
In February, CKC presented Thua Thien Hue Province Association of Victims of Agent Orange with over VND 8 million, donated by participating households to support 16 disadvantaged families.
The research project is jointly implemented by the University of Göttingen (Germany), the University of California, Davis (USA), and CKC, aiming to explore consumers’ biased beliefs unpacking process in Hue City, Vietnam when presented with varying labelling schemes that communicate food safety information in vegetables retail markets. The research results are expected to be highlighted in a working paper and submitted for publication in a high-impact peer-reviewed journal by the end of 2023.
Vu Ngo