Start date: October 2009
Expected end date: September 2022
Support office: World Vision Switzerland
Location: Quan Son District, Thanh Hoa Province

Program background

Quan Son is mountainous district, lying at 20 0 06’15’’ to 200 24' 30" Northern latitude and 104036’30’’ to 1050 08' 25" Eastern altitude. The district located 128 km North West of Thanh Hoa city, we can go to Quan son by two national roads: No 217 and No 47. The district has 64 km of international boundary and 6 bordering communes with Hua Phan province of Republish of Lao linkage with Na Meo international border gate. Quan Son borders with Quan Hoa district to the North; Ba Thuoc and Lang Chanh district to the East.

The district has a population of 35,080 people, of which Thai ethnic minority accounts for 86%, Kinh people account for 4%, Muong people 7% and Hmong 3%. There are 11 communes and one town; they are Son Dien, Tam Lu, Trung Xuan, Son Thuy, Muong Min, Tam Thanh, Son Ha, Son Lu, Na Meo, Trung Thuong, Trung Ha and district town. All of commune in Quan Son district are supported by 135 and 30a programs, the national poverty alleviation program.

The district is about 141 km and 3.5 hours far from Thanh Hoa city. The roads in the district are in poor condition. Quan Son can reach Hanoi by bus and coach in seven hours by Ho Chi Minh road.

Program description

Quan Son Area Development Programme aims to improve the well-being of poor children and their families in the target communes. Focused beneficiaries are most vulnerable children and poor households. To reach this target, ADP has been carrying out such projects as agriculture, nutrition, education, capacity building and sponsorship in four communes, namely, Trung Xuan, Trung Tien, Trung Thuong and Son Lu.

Child well being outcomes are concentrated on recent years with supports on nutrition through improving knowledge on childcare for parents and caregivers, education though improving learning and teaching equipment for schools and students, knowledge and method of teaching for teachers, etc. Beside to help children’s parents to have better condition to care for children, the ADP also conducts the activities of economic development for poor families.

Program development

Quan Son ADP supports villagers to raise animals to improve their income.

• Agriculture is the main income of local people; the paddy field is mainly in the low and has limited water for irrigation. Rice is one of the most important factors for all households in district. World Vision’s assessment showed that the main crops is rice in the district but villagers lack knowledge on improved cultivation techniques and money to buy fertilizer. Local rice yield was low because of the traditional cultivation models so agriculture project was considered a priority of the ADP in the phase 1.
• Stakeholders of this project mainly include poor farmers, community veterinarians, community extension workers, project management boards (PMBs), district extension station, district agriculture department, and veterinary station. These partners are direct beneficiaries of the ADP. They have worked to eradicate hunger and reduce poverty in their communities and consider the ADP to be a positive element to support them in fighting against hunger and poverty. They all show a positive attitude towards the ADP and are willing to participate in the project activities.
• In the phase 1, the ADP focused on increasing food for households throughout the year. To realise this goal, the agriculture project increased annual rice self-product per-capita, improved and expanded animal husbandry raising among target households.

The ADP assisted regular check-up to local students.

• High malnutrition rate among children under five can be attributed to their mothers’ poor diet, harsh working habit of women and backward custom, which is mainly related to feeding practices. Women during pregnancy and after-delivery periods have no better diets than their normal days. They have only rice and vegetable due to their difficult economic conditions. Pregnant women keep working hard to earn for their living as usually.
• Poor people cannot afford to buid water supply systems or to dig/drill wells at their home or their community. Under the project, poorest villages are selected to build clean water supply systems or public wells and some poor households who cannot access to public wells or clean water supply systems are supported to build drilling wells or dig wells.
• Improved nutrition status of children under five years old is the goal of this project. Improved appropriate nutrition-related practices of mothers and caregivers and improved better health environment for children are two main topics that the ADP implements to reach the above goal.

Students in Quan Son ADP responded to the Global Action Week for Education.

• The main beneficiaries of the project are poor children, especially those at kindergarten and primary schools, their teachers and their parents.
• Aiming to improve studying performance of school children, the ADP focused on improving access to quality preschool education of children under five years old and improving access to quality education at target primary schools.
• Key interventions of the project are trainings for teachers, basic education supply for schools and school-based monitoring board establishment.
• Teachers receive training courses on new teaching and learning methodologies, helping to improve the quality of teaching at kindergartens, primary and secondary schools.
• The learning conditions of kindergarten and primary students has been improved as the ADP supported their schools to construct playgrounds, kitchens and school latrines, and provide them with school supplies.
• Activities to raise local awareness on children’s rights and life skills are carried out at community level, promoting the importance of child protection and safety.

Capacity building project

• This project has been carried out to contribute on sustainable strategy of activities after the ADP phases out in Quan Son district.
• The project’s goal is to increase the ADP staff’s performance and local partner’s participation in transformation development. To achieve the goal, the ADP needs to increase capacity of partners for managing community development including project management, community development and child participation, and to improve capacity of women with the focus on gender equity and REFLECT.
• The ADP concentrates on training the community to initiate and implement development projects and increasing villagers’ participation on designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluation the ADP’s activities. The work aims that villagers, commune management boards and village development boards will take main responsibility of the ADP’s activities at their communities.

A registered child is happy to receive small gifts from her sponsor.

• Sponsorship system is mainly based on education system. Primary school teachers, who are the ADP’s sponsorship (SR) volunteers, help to process sponsorship correspondence, manage and monitor any other sponsorship-related work at local level, and communicate with sponsored children and their families regarding the project goal/outcomes/outputs/activities of the ADP. A national staff of World Vision Vietnam is responsible for supervising this network of SR volunteers.
• Quan Son ADP has 1,312 registered children. The children are representatives of their community who maintain correspondence with their sponsors through letters. Most of the children live in poor families.
• When implementing activities at community, the ADP always prioritizes the registered children and their families.