Hydropower dialogues: Open mind, Open heart, Open will is a collection of sharings, contributions and discussions by stakeholders from the Workshop on “Promoting dialogical social impact assessment and gender impact assessment for sustainable hydropower development in the Vietnam Central and Central Highlands”. The Workshop and the publication were initiated by three Australian alumni under the Australia Awards Scholarship program and funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Alumni Grants Fund.
The Centre for Social Research and Development (CSRD) has worked with development partners and hydropower affected communities in Vietnam’s Central and Central Highlands Regions over the past 10 years. It has promoted social and gender impact assessments to bring out positive change for communities and relevant stakeholders. The Center for Knowledge Co-creation and Development Research (CKC) has used CSRD’s research results to promote a model for dialogues among stakeholders for social and gender impact assessments by conducting a three-day workshop from 9-11 May, 2019 at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Central Region, Da Nang city. This Workshop aimed to promote collaborative dialogue among stakeholders in social and gender impact assessments in hydropower development in the Vietnam Central and Central Highlands, and to strengthen support for the sustainable development of disadvantaged communities in these regions. The Workshop involved 40 participants from State agencies, institutes, research centers, hydropower companies, social organisations, and local communities from Dak Lak, Quang Nam, Thua Thien Hue and Quang Binh provinces.
This publication conveys important messages from the Workshop. Stakeholders in hydropower projects should consider the social and gender impacts from hydropower project development using a multi-dimensional perspective to introduce creative solutions which minimise the negative impacts on affected communities. Local communities should develop community visions for the next 5-10 years which share common development goals and which mobilise the resources of public agencies, companies and communities to achieve sustainable development in the future. Progress requires effort, determination, and co working by the community and stakeholders with a transformative dialogue based on an open mind, open heart and open will.
CKC is a new organisation and we want to ensure that we meet with and understand other NGOs who share our values and who we may be able to co-work with as partners at some point. So CKC’s Director Mrs Van Nguyen and the Business Advisor, Mr Philip Thomas spent two days in Ha Noi in November visiting several international and local NGOs. We met with INGOs Oxfam, World Vision and Care International as well as Vietnamese NGOs WARECOD, SRD and iSEE.
We really appreciated their welcome to us and their interest in our work, and we were really impressed by the amazing contributions they have made to disadvantaged groups across Vietnam over many years. Whether it is empowering women, supporting ethnic minorities and LGBT groups, children and people with disabilities, it was a great reminder to us of how much the NGO sector has contributed to Vietnam’s development over many decades. With the changing funding environment, so many of these NGOs are showing creativity and resilience in how they respond to this changing scene – often by finding opportunities to work with the private sector where there are common values through their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs.
Thank you to all those Ha Noi NGOs who gave us time and shared their experiences with us.https://ceskalekarna247.com/prodej-zenska-viagra-bez-receptu-online/
On Sunday 27th Oct 2019, Center for Knowledge Co-creation and Development Research (CKC) organized the closing ceremony of the Project ‘Empowering Women to Build a Strong and Sustainable Village’. At the same event, CKC also organized the presentation of community ideas to contribute to reducing plastic waste. Additionally, CKC coordinated with local authorities to provide households with 240 rattan baskets and install industrial and bamboo waste bins in Ngu My Thanh village to improve the collection infrastructure and waste management.
Representatives of CKC, Quang Dien District, Quang Loi Commune and the local people of Ngu My Thanh village attended the event.
The project has been implemented between August and October with the commitment and enthusiastic support of the local authority. The project objectives have now been completed and have achieved unexpected results. In particular, CKC organized two successful training courses for more than 100 local people which focused on (1) environmental protection in the lagoon and reducing single-use plastic products, and (2) the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) approach. Through these training courses, the project motivated four local groups to develop a ‘zero plastic waste village’ model.
At the presentation, the groups presented their project results through a competition, with ideas such as ‘Using banana leaves instead of plastic bags’, ‘Turning waste into flowers’, ‘Community-based tourism without plastic waste’, and a local campaign to clean up the lagoon habitat. The ideas were presented creatively and entertainingly on stage by the women’s groups and with the efforts of everyone in the group, they showed their determination to practice and maintain their model in their community. The initiatives help to raise public awareness and change local habits, and especially emphasize the role of women in reducing plastic waste in their own home, as well as their neighbourhood and the village.
All the community ideas will now be documented to learn from the experience and to communicate the lessons about plastic-free village models.
At the end of the ceremony, CKC gave 240 rattan baskets to each household in Ngu My Thanh village to use for their daily shopping activities, instead of disposable plastic bags. There were also ten bamboo waste bins for the households which own the tourist boats for the lagoon area. CKC also coordinated with the Quang Loi commune authorities and Ngu My Thanh village to install six industrial waste bins and six bamboo waste bins in prominent places like the market areas and the community house. This will improve the collection infrastructure and waste management in the community.
At the end of the event, each participant was awarded a certificate, as well as their rattan basket. As a leader of their household, they are expected to take a lead in communicating with family members and their community about reducing plastic waste and keeping their environment clean.
The activities were organised through the ‘Empowering Women to Build a Strong and Sustainable Village’ project. The project is funded by Australian Volunteers International (AVI) and was implemented by CKC between August and October 2019. The project will help to build an environmentally friendly community and will attract more visitors to support local tourism.
