Dear MEMBERS and FRIENDS,
Welcome to the NGO Resource Centre Newsletter for May 1 - 15.
In response to the broad rage of changes in Vietnam's socio-economic context since 1999, when the People's Participation Working Group (PPWG) was first established, the PPWG Steering Committee has been revising the PPWG strategy for 2008 to 2010, including a revision of the overall goals and objectives, and strategic directions.
The next important step is to receive feedback from PPWG members on the revised Strategy Draft and to seek comments and advice for successfully implementing the new strategy. Therefore, the PPWG Steering Committee would like to invite PPWG members and other interested individuals and organisations to a consultation meeting on the draft 2008-2010 PPWG strategy on May 6 from 14:00 to 16:30 at the World Bank, 63 Ly Thai To, 1st floor, Vietnam Development Information Center. The meeting will also include a presentation on UNDP's current and planned key programmes and activities relating to peoples’ participation, civil society, and grassroots democracy in Vietnam, and UNDP feedback on the PPWG strategy and how the UNDP might link their work with, and support, the draft revised PPWG strategy and related future activities. For more information, visit http://ngocentre.org.vn/node/119 [2]. Should you wish to attend the meeting, please confirm your attendance by sending an email to [email protected] [3] no later than May 2.
On April 24, the Vietnam Environmental Economics Association, in cooperation with the Vietnam Association of Photographic Artists, initiated a national-wide photographic contest on "Poverty and Environment Linkages". The contest, with support from the Poverty and Environment Project, aims to raise public awareness and concern about the linkages between poverty and environment. For more information on the the contest's rules and regulations, please call (04) 9435885.
In other news, Nokia's Community Involvement team is looking to work with an NGO to implement a community programme in Vietnam. The focus areas are youth development (education, health, help with a related crisis/issue, livelihood, safety, self-expression, human rights etc.) and mobile technology for development (how mobile technology can be implemented to reap societal benefits) and the funding period can be between one-to-three years and even beyond. The scale of the funding depends on the scale of the programme and how it develops.Nokia is therefore calling for proposals (a brief one-page concept plan for each programme) from interested NGOs (local or international) and have set aside two days on May 14-15 to meet with organisations at their office in Ho Chi Minh City. For more information, please contact Jenny Lim at [email protected] [4].
The Ethnic Minority Working Group (EMWG) will organise a special meeting with UK academic Dr Bob Baulch and Dr Pham Hung from VASS relating to research they have carried out on ethnic minorities and development in Vietnam on the afternoon of Monday, May 12. For more information on the event, please contact [email protected] [5].
There are four working group meetings coming up in the next few weeks: the Public Awareness and Behaviour Change Subgroup meeting will be held on May 6 from 14:00 – 17:00 at the NGO RC; the HIV/AIDS Technical Working Group meeting will be held on May 21 from 14:00-16:00; the Disability Working Group meeting will be held on May 15 from 14:00-17:00 at the NGO RC; and the WATSAN Working Group meeting will be held on May 30 from 14:00-16:00.
See the Calendar section for more details.
From all of us at the NGO RC, we wish you the very best over the holiday period.