Australian Deputy Head of Mission to Vietnam visits WEAVE project in Lao Cai

Australian Deputy Head of Mission to Vietnam, Ms. Rebecca Bryant, and colleagues visited the Women Economic Empowerment through Agricultural Value Chain Enhancement (WEAVE) project in Bac Ha District, Lao Cai province on 19 October 2018. Ms. Bryant met with local women and men, provincial and commune leaders to understand the challenges facing ethnic minority women in Northern regions of Vietnam and how Australia’s aid program is addressing those challenges.

We want to share with you some photos on the trip when the team attended a community training and visited some successful businesses by local women in the pork and cinnamon value chains supported by WEAVE. 

Women and men in Bao Nhai commune, Bac Ha district participating a training workshop using gender action tools to discuss long term family plans based on the shared work and decision making between men and women in a family.

“We are drawing our dream paths. Some are very simple, like we can ride a motorbike. If we can do that, we can go to many places and do things we want to do without depending on our husbands. It’s great when we can visualise our dreams and see a better future is just around the corner”, said Ms Le Thi Hoi 

Mr Bui Kien Cuong shared: “I go to this meeting to know many new good things for my family; one of those is I see how I can share the work with my wife for our happy life.” 

Visiting a sausage business. Phuong started up her business after 20 years raising pigs, but her income fluctuated each year because the market was not sustained. Through its business development trainings, food safety and investment consultations, WEAVE contributed to motivating Phuong to start her sausage business whose market now expands beyond her home province to Ha Noi, Hai Duong, Hai Phong.  

The team visited a cinnamon processing group who participated in WEAVE’s training on new techniques to produce finer cinnamon for better prices.

WEAVE is a four-year project (2016-2020) funded by the Australian Government, and is being implemented by a consortium of CARE, Oxfam and SNV in Lao Cai and Bac Kan. WEAVE has supported ethnic minority women’s economic empowerment in pork, cinnamon and banana value chains. The project aims to promote equality between women and men within households and producer groups, working with business and government decision-makers to improve the policy environment to support producers.

More photos are available at https://www.flickr.com/photos/oxfaminvietnam/albums/72157699378816302