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Visit to AUICK Associate Cities AUICK sent a delegation to Danang, Vietnam, and Chittagong, Bangladesh from 28 May to 7 June, for monitoring the activities. Both cities are AUICK Associate Cities (AACs). CONTENTS Visit
to Danang Visit
to Chittagong In the morning of 30 May 2006, the AUICK delegation, composed of Dr. Hirofumi Ando, President, Mr. Yoshikane Fujimoto, Executive Director, and Mr. Nobuyuki Morimoto, Deputy Executive Director, paid a courtesy call on Mr. Tran Phuoc Chinh, Vice Chairman, Danang Peoples Committee. The delegation was accompanied by Mr. Ian Howie, UNFPA Representative in Vietnam, and his senior secretary Ms. Do Thi Thu Ha. On 31 May 2006, the delegation had a monitoring meeting with two past participants individually, discussed the implementation of their action plans, and asked for their suggestions on how to improve the future AUICK workshop. 1. Meeting with Vice Chairman of Danang People's Committee The mission began with a meeting with Mr. Tran Phuoc Chinh, Vice Chairman, and other senior officials to discuss AUICK's activities in Danang City, including the possible development of an efficient information management system through collaboration with the University of Danang, and to plan for the continuing partnership between AUICK and Danang City. Mr. Tran Phuoc Chinh expressed his appreciation of the assistance that AUICK has given in promoting the capacity building of Danang city officials in the areas of population and sustainable development.  2. Monitoring Meeting with Participants of the First 2005 Workshop The delegation met with Dr. Kim Anh Thi Doan Vo, Vice Director, Department of Health, Danang People's Committee, who attended the First 2005 Workshop on Adolescent Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS.
According to Dr. Kim Anh Thi Doan Vo, the main problem encountered is the very lack of information among the high school students and children. It also requires many trips, at the cost of time and resources in order to build trust and network at the local level. Sometimes the staff of Save the Children UNFPA accompany her staff. Children and students ask a lot about safe sex and condoms. They are concerned whether they should use other contraceptive methods like oral pills, etcetera. So they ask many sensitive questions. In Vietnam the issue of sex is still very delicate.. For every trip they bring some specialists, obstetrician or gynecological staff so that they can give specific answers to their questions. Prior to the actual setup of the Corners, Dr. Kim Anh Thi Doan Vo conducted discussion sessions with young people to decide on where to set up the corners. In general, they recommended that the Corners should be outside obstetric centers to avoid unnecessary judgment by people. As for utilizing what she learned from the workshop, Dr. Kim Anh Thi Doan Vo reported that she had applied peer counseling in the youth friendly corners in the health centers. Whenever she carried out those peer counseling sessions, she involved the Save the Children Fund staff. She has also used many different techniques, including role play, and group discussions as to attract young people to the Youth Friendly Corners. She found the peer counseling method to be very useful and necessary for increasing the awareness of the youth about reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. Dr. Kim Anh Thi Doan Vo has also had a very close collaboration with the Youth Union. Whenever she organized dialogues or discussions on peer education session with young people, there is always a Youth Union presence in attendance. From the AUICK workshop Dr. Kim Anh Thi Doan Vo obtained two important lessons: First, the conviction that not only Vietnam but also the whole world is very much concerned about adolescent reproductive health issues led her to draw up her action plan. Second, how to translate the knowledge that she obtained into actions to benefit the people. For improvement of the workshop program, she made two suggestions.
Finally, Dr. Kim Anh Thi Doan Vo said, "we have conducted those adolescent reproductive health activities successfully. But, I myself am worried very much about the sustainability of these activities. We don't receive a lot of financial support from the government because it is not really the highest priority here. So, after the workshop I myself had to work with several donors to try to mobilize the funds." She appreciated the support of UNFPA. 3. Monitoring Meeting with Participants of the Second 2005 Workshop The delegation also interviewed Mr. Huyun Van Hoa, Director, Education and Training Department, Danang People's Committee, who attended the Second 2005 Workshop on Universalization of Primary Education for the Urban Poor. He briefed the participants on the education system of Vietnam.
Mr. Huynh Van Hoa explained the rapidly growing number of school children of immigrant workers as one of the major issues the city is facing now. "People come into Danang from outside. Danang is in the middle of Vietnam equipped with a convenient transportation system inlcuding boats, trains, airplanes, and cars. So, the city receives a large flow of migrants. Since Danang is urbanizing and has been establishing industrialized zones, it is also an attractive commercial center to people from other places. Unfortunately, the city has no accurate figures on immigrantion, or the numbers of school children of migrant workers. They come and go frequently, and don't take long-term residence in the city. But the children of migrant workers are allowed to go to school without fees. The estimated percentage of migrants is maybe 5 to 10 per thousand people including their children. (The total population is about 840,000.)" "Primary education in Vietnam is compulsory and totally free. Every child will have to go to school when they reach six years of age. If any child does not go to school, they are contacted by local associations and bodies such as the Center for Protection of Street Children, Women's Union, soldiers, as well as the Association for Education Promotion. These associations and bodies are involved in making all the children go to school either to government schools or to some other classes.. There are five Centers in different locations of Danang. We also work with charity organizations called the Hand of Hope. They provide free lunches for those children to encourage them to go to school. The center for the protection of street children received certain support in the past from the Lady Mitterrand, the wife of President Mitterrand of France. She has also mobilized some financial support in France for the street children. These foreign efforts are also very helpful to us to universalize the primary education for the children here." Mr. Huynh Van Hoa reported another action he has tried to implement during the six months after the workshop. Danang has a 30 kilometer coastline. DOET recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the coastline border soldiers to open evening classes for children of fishermen's families. Those classes are considered a part of the program for universalization of primary education. He also agreed to transfer 100 million dong from the National Education Target Program to the coastline border soldiers for their involvement in education. Just recently DOET and the coastline borders soldiers opened three classes. "For protection of street children," he said, "tomorrow the DOET will sign a memorandum of understanding with the Women's Union. One of the articles within the memorandum is that no women are allowed to let their children be illiterate. That means that they have to encourage their children to go to school. Before signing with the Women's Union, we have worked separately. Now we will work with the Women's Union. In the very near future we will work with the ageing association where the old people will encourage their grandchildren to go to school, or we will work with the trade union or the government workers to ensure their children go to school. It is impossible to do our work without the collaboration of other concerned departments in the city. One of the very important tasks is promoting partnership among the city's different agencies." Regarding the introduction of reproductive health subjects at the primary school level and junior high school level, Mr. Huynh Van Hoa stated that reproductive health education is a subject in the junior and high school education. As for sex education or RH education, it is directed to children from 11 19 years of age. At the workshop Mr. Huynh Van Hoa visited two schools - a school located in a less-populated area about 90 kilometers North-west of Kobe and a school located in a newly developed area near downtown Kobe. He passed on to his colleagues in Danang what he learned. "I was quite impressed to know that how great the investment of the government of Japan in education is." The most memorable experience seemed to be his visit to the school in a mountainous area where he was impressed not just by their warm welcome but also by their good facilities and the investment that had gone into in that area even though it was remote from Kobe City.. He was also very interested to see that, the Japanese primary schools have a good nutrition service for the school children, and that there were no fat children. The infrastructure for physical exercise was also very good in his opinion. He found that there was close collaboration among the teachers and the parents when he chatted with the parents who came to pick up their children. Regarding the information on the primary education in the eight cities of other countries, Mr. Huynh Van Hoa stated, "Among the eight educated cities, some of them are poorer than Vietnam and some are richer. But I think the education program from Weihai, and Kuantan have good examples that we should learn from. I shared our difficulties in the educational program with the participants from Chennai and Chittagong." Mr. Huynh Van Hoa further noted the immigration issue as one of the biggest obstacles to the universal primary education in Vietnam. "First, the immigrants are so poor that they cannot affort to pay attention to the education of their children. Many fishermen come here from Hue or Quang Nam and they bring their families with them. To advocate them to send their children to school will be very time consuming and require a lot of patience. People who come to live and work at the harbor, by the station, also require a lot of time and energy to pursuade them to send their children to school. Another issue is school infrastructure. The policy from MOET is to provide a full day of education to the children. But in some local areas, ,there are shifts of classes in the morning and in the afternoon, between which the students can choose. In Danang, before the AUICK workshop, only 70 percent of the schools provided a full day of education to their children. But now this has increased more than 10 percent. It's a rather high percentage compared to the national average.. In some localities, they have to have three shifts for classes -- morning, noon, and afternoon." The AUICK delegation, composed of Mr. Yoshikane Fujimoto and Mr. Nobuyuki Morimoto, visited Chittagong, Bangladesh, from 4 to 6 June 2006. Dr. Rafiqus Sultan, National Professional Project Personnel, UNFPA Bangladesh Office, accompanied the delegation. Dr. Iftekhar Uddin Chowdhury, Professor of Sociology, University of Chittagong, who has been an academic collaborator for AUICK's activities in Chittagong since 2004, assisted the delegation as an Japanese-Bengali interpreter. 1. Meeting with a Resource Person for the First 2006 Workshop In the morning of 5 June 2006, the delegation met with Mr. A.K.M. Rezaul Karim, Architect and Head, City Planning Department, Chittagong City Corporation. Mr. Karim is scheduled to attend the Second 2006 Workshop as a resource person for the best practice on solid waste management and greenery in Chittagong. He gave the delegation a report entitled 'Population and Environment Protection in Urban Planning: A Perspective of Clean and Green Chittagong' which he is scheduled to present at the workshop.  With Mr. A.K.M. Rezaul Karim (back right) (For the details of the paper, please refer to the "Workshop" article in this Newsletter and to the full text on the AUICK database.) 2. Monitoring Meeting with Participants of the First 2005 Workshop In the afternoon of 5 June, the delegation had a monitoring meeting with Dr. Salim Akhter Chowdhury who participated in the First 2005 Workshop on Adolescent Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS. He attended the workshop in the capacity of Health Officer, but when the delegation visited him, he had just been promoted to Chief Health Officer. The meeting was held in his office.
CCC manages six maternity hospitals, 19 charitable dispensaries, 40 Urban Primary Health Care Centers, one Homeopathic College, nine Homeopathic Centers, one Junior Midwifery College, one Institute of Health Technology, 263 Orphanage Centers, one Pharmaceutical Industry, one Bangladesh Kidney Foundation-Chittagong City Corporation Center, and one Diabetic Hospital. According to Dr. Chowdhury CCC served a total of 125,374 patients in CCC Charitable Dispensaries, 70,334 patients in CCC Maternity Hospitals, 40,900 patients in Homeopathic Dispensaries and Hospitals, and 255,243 patients in Second Urban Primary Health Care Center under PA-1 during January-December 2005. During January-March 2006, the total number of patients in Urban Primary Health Care Project-II was 29,882. Then he explained the progress of his action plan after his return to Bangladesh. "Since I returned from the Workshop in Kobe, I have been making efforts to implement my action plan for the prevention of AIDS." CCC had signed an agreement with Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) to implement the HIV/AIDS program for three years. The expense for his project is covered by a fund of 2 million Euro provided by GTZ. A German instructor recently conducted a one-week training program in Chittagong, and on 18 May seven doctors were sent to Mahidol University, Bangkok, for three weeks of training. From what he learned, he felt peer education for young people seemed to be quite effective. Therefore, he proposed to presidents of colleges and universities and others concerned to hold a conference to train students to be peer education instructors at each university. Upon the seven doctors return to Chittagong, peer education training will start under their guidance. The target is about 2000 students from four colleges and one university. He also reported that a committee has recently been formed in order to promote anti-AIDS campaigns in each ward.,The committee is composed of 40 district commissioners, health service officers, and representatives of NGOs. CCC also introduced the Drug Box program to serve the poor in the city in 41 wards with 100 staff. Dr. Chowdhury suggested that AUICK arrange some training programs on Hospital Management, HIV/AIDS prevention and practices for the CCC medical personnel. Dr. Chowdhury pointed out the problem of the lack of demographic statistics. In Bangladesh, there are no records of statistics such as the numbers of births, deaths and marriages. Legally speaking, a new-born child should be reported to the government within 3 weeks, but the system doesn't work efficiently. Census surveys are conducted regularly, but their data cannot be regarded as accurate. When a birth is reported a birth certificate is issued. In order to promote the submission of a notification of birth, the Mayor initiated the service to provide the parents who notified the birth of their baby with a maternity set. Dr. Chowdhury requested to AUICK that it organize a program on hospital management for doctors. It would be very helpful to have training since they are involved in hospital management in Bangladesh. Budget management and health economics are especially important. He also pointed out that it is necessary to improve public health services. Regarding HIV/AIDS, he stated that CCC has put a priority on professional information on prevention rather than treatment of these diseases because there are only a few HIV/AIDS patients in Bangladesh. He then requested AUICK to provide information on preventive measures. The AUICK delegation asked Dr. Rafiqus Sultan whether he could establish a plan to prevent HIV/AIDS in cooperation with Chittagong in the future or not. He responded, "As similar programs are being developed by UNFPA Bangladesh Office, we can provide relevant information to Chittagong City Corporation." 3. Visit to a Municipal Maternity Hospital After the meeting with Dr. Salim Chowdhury, the delegation visited a maternity hospital, where the delegation had a short talk with the hospital officials about AUICK's activities in Chittagong. A strong request was made to the delegation that AUICK send obstetricians to Chittagong so that the doctors in Chittagong can learn Japan's advanced obstetrics directly.  4. Meeting with the Mayor of Chittagong In the morning of 6 June 2006, the delegation visited the Chittagong City Corporation and paid a courtesy call on Mr. Mohiuddin Chowdhury, Mayor of Chittagong. The meeting was attended by several CCC senior officials, including Mr. Mostafa Kamal Uddin, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Kazi Mobassher Ahmed Hashemi, Ward Commissioner, Ward Commissioner, Jalalabad Ward (Ward No.2), Dr. Salim Akhter Chowdhury, and A.K.M. Rezaul Karim. The Mayor welcomed the AUICK delegation with a flower bouquet and highly appreciated the cooperation of AUICK for the training of CCC personnel. Mr. Fujimoto on behalf of AUICK extended their heart-felt thanks to the mayor for his understanding and cooperation in AUICK activities. Mr. Fujimoto explained the objectives of the mission and requested the Mayor for his continued support and cooperation in future activities. In response, the Mayor also recognized the importance and effectiveness of AUICK's training program, even though the project undertaken by Kobe City and Chittagong City through AUICK is very small. He expressed his hope that, "If we try to deepen the relationship with each other by signing a sister city agreement between Kobe and Chittagong, we will both be able to enjoy the benefits." The Mayor emphasized the importance of education, including vocational education. He said, that Bangladesh people value education more highly than anything else. Cities can advance only when the standard of education is raised. CCC is working hard so that everybody can have access to education. We also focus on computer and IT education. The Mayor hopes to send our young people to Japan and other IT-advanced nations to study. He wants to see the young people, having studied overseas, spread their knowledge within Bangladesh. Alternatively, skilled engineers could be sent from overseas to Chittagong to act as instructors in engineer training programs. If this is possible, the Mayor will extend his full support to provide a venue for them." The Mayor also remarked that Bangladesh is fundamentally an agricultural country. When advances in agricultural technology are made in this country, Bangladesh will flourish. There is a good port in Chittagong, and a need to train port engineers. He said, "I believe when the port is developed, the city will surely make progress. When Chittagong flourishes, Bangladesh will flourish." Showing the delegation a trainees list, the Mayor explained about an occupational training program for young poor people implemented by CCC under his leadership. These young people are assigned to actual worksites such as barbers and learn professional skills. After the training, they can receive support from Chittagong to open their own shops.  Mayor Chowdhury explaining the vocational training program The Mayor requested the delegation to help CCC develop vocational education for the Chittagong people. He cited an example of a midwifery college managed by CCC and equipped with a dormitory. Currently 30 students are studying there. The period of study is one and half years, and a license is issued to each successful student upon completion. If AUICK considers a training program to accept five or six midwives in hospitals of Kobe for training in advanced maternity practice, it will not only motivate them but also introduce them to the other health professionals of high standard of maternity practice in Japan." The delegation promised him to explore the possibility of accepting medical trainees in Kobe upon their return to Kobe. The delegation raised the issue of the nomination of workshop participants because an officer from Bangladesh who participated in the Second 2005 Workshop was transferred to another city shortly after returning to Chittagong. The delegation stated, that "As it is a precondition of the action plan that it should be put into practice over 3 to 4 years, we would like to request that participants in the workshop stay in the same position for at least that period after their return to the country, and introduce or train other staff so that they can utilize the knowledge they gain towards their projects." The delegation also emphasized that for the continuation of AUICK activities in the next program cycle of 2008-2011, it is essential to produce visible outcomes of the current project. The AUICK delegation asked the Mayor for his continued understanding of AUICK's requirements and for cooperation in selecting more appropriate participants for future workshops. They also requested that he give his assistance to the officials who are making efforts to implement their action plans after participating in AUICK's workshops.  After hosting lunch, the Mayor took the team to visit the Midwifery College where he made a speech honoring the AUICK team. Dr. Iftekhar Uddin Chowdhury, Professor of Sociology, University of Chittagong, had briefed the students and staff of the college about AUICK and its development program in nine Asian cities. Mr. Fujimoto and Mr. Morimoto also spoke at the gathering and expressed their appreciation for the efforts the students and staff have been making for serving the poor in the country.  Then, Mr. Karim guided the delegation to facilities related to the best practice on environmental protection including a compressed natural gas (CNG) plant. This full-fledged CNG Plant was established under CCC in 2003 to supply CNG at an economical rate (only 1/3 of the price of Patrol/Octane) and to discourage the use of petrol/diesel operated vehicles and thereby reducing air pollution in the city at the same time. Two stroke engine (tri-wheeler) baby taxies were withdrawn from the city streets with the introduction of new environment friendly CNG taxies at the beginning of 2003. CCC is also supporting the car owners.  Then, Mr. Karim guided the delegation to a dumping yard of CCC, where they inspected the recycling plant of CCC for firewood and organic fertilizer.  Collected palm shells are softened into fibrous bundles  Fibrous bundles are compressed by high heat compactors  Produced firewood  Machine drying fertilizer  Residents around the dumping yard picking out recycable materials from garbage. |
She
reported that there are currently five Youth Friendly Corners in Danang
to introduce and strengthen the reproductive health service program for
young people. After she came back from the Workshop she set up three of
them - one each in two districts and one in a community organized under
the Vietnam Family Planning Association. They faced some financial
difficulty, but thanks to the support of UNFPA they are now running
very well. The last two Youth Friendly Corners in the district health
centers are run by the Maternal and Child Health Family Planning Team
under her supervision with financial support from the Save the Children
US.
Since
Danang City belongs to the Central Government, the Department of
Education and Training (DOET) take direct control of primary education.
But the system here is rather different from Japan. The Ministry of
Education and Training is the technical brain and the Department of
Education and Training here is the advisory body accountable to the
People's Committee in all matters related to education in Danang City.
Then he acknowledged that the theme of the workshop is very useful to
Danang because it is concerned with benefiting the poor people in our
city in terms of primary education. In addition, regarding city size,
when compared to other cities like Weihai, Faisalabad or Chittagong,
Danang has certain advantages because it is rather compact.
At the outset of the
meeting, Dr.
Chowdhury said, "In order to secure transparency of administration, a
press conference is always held at the start of any new project so as
to disseminate information on the policies and activities of the
Chittagong City Corporation to the citizens through media such as
newspapers." Then, he briefed the health administration of CCC.