GREAT stories

In early summer, when the weather is warm and the rain often comes suddenly, it is the ideal time for people in Van Ban District, Lao Cai Province to harvest bamboo shoots. Along the highway to Lao Cai City and the main roads of Van Ban District, many people can be seen carrying bags of

This winter, we spoke with Ms Lo Thi Nguyen, Director of the Xuan Nha Clean Bamboo Shoot Cooperative in front of the newly constructed processing factory located at Tun Village, Xuan Nha Commune, Van Ho District, Son La Province. The 400m2 modern facility is equipped to process bamboo shoots to be exported to Taiwan. “I

Luong Thi Hong Tuoi and the Thai ethnic minority farming community of Vat Village have in recent times relied on tourists to supplement their incomes, but despite the recent downturn due to COVID-19, their prospects are much better now than even just a few years ago.  Like many rural villages, farming around Vat village was

Like many other Red Dao women in Ta Phin, a commune close to the tourism hot spot of Sapa, Tan Ta May only finished primary school. Her childhood was very much intertwined with traditional Dao herbal bathing remedies handed down from generation to generation. However, the severe poverty particularly of ethnic minority women in the

Born in 1989, Nguyen Thi Huyen – the energetic female director of Vina Samex Company has more than 10 years of experience working in the specialty spice sector in Vietnam. As the third largest cinnamon producer in the world, Vietnam has natural advantages that have supported the growth of companies like Vina Samex. However, initially,

Originally from Ninh Binh, a lowland province in north Vietnam, Nguyen Thi Tram moved to Van Ban to be a teacher and now considers it her second home. Over the past two decades, she has witnessed the economic difficulty experienced by people in Van Ban and the entrenched disadvantages of ethnic minority women in particular.

Born and raised in Phu Tho Province, Nhung first came to Bac Ha in 2006, when she was only 21. It was a trip full of surprises with difficult road conditions to the village – she even had to get off and help push the motorbike taxi some of the way to the village.  There