Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Women build a cleaner future in Vietnam In remote Dien Bien province in Vietnam’s far northwest, local women are taking the lead on sanitation – in more ways than one. In the province’s Muong Ang district, with its high ethnic diversity, low literacy, and poverty levels of over 47% the sanitation situation is challenging. “Women take a key role here,” a representative of the Dien Bien Women’s Union says, “normally it’s only women that start the discussion about sanitation”. But now women in the district are starting more than discussions, with 12 Muong Ang women having recently trained as masons – a local first. After attending the training on sanitary latrine construction techniques and sanitation marketing skills, the women, who used to work as assistant masons, can now provide professional toilet construction services and advise local households on sanitary latrine options. “Before the training course I was an assistant mason and when I stood on the scaffold people would stare,” one of the trainees Nguyen Hong Toan says, “now I feel confident”. Toan is currently completing three orders to construct toilets that she has received since the training and her income has increased by some 30%. She now has a strong vision of her future as a skilled mason, with plans to construct latrines for the local Tay ethnic people. The training was just one result of SNV Vietnam’s partnership with the Dien Bien Women’s Union and the provincial Centre of Preventive Medicine (CPM) under the AusAIDfunded Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All programme. Together, the three organisations have been building momentum for improved sanitation and hygiene through mobilising women at the local level, while increasing recognition for the role of women in sanitation improvement. The Dien Bien Women’s Union’s large membership (74,000 people – 70% of women in the province), strong existing network and communication skills, and interest in sanitation has been an important factor in supporting women to prioritise sanitation. “If a woman really believes in sanitation, she will convince her husband,” a Women’s Union representative says, adding that local women now proactively discuss sanitation and latrine construction with their husbands and encourage their neighbours to also build latrines. The programme has more than doubled the number of households who now have access to improved sanitation, while a June 2011 monitoring review by AusAID found that SNV’s work has also contributed to advancing gender equality in two ways – through activating a network of women all the way down to village level through the partnership with the Women’s Union, and via seeking out female assistant masons and including them in training to become lead masons. JULY 2012 CONNECT #1 15 Pagina 14
Pagina 16Heeft u een uitgave, onlinepublisher of digi uitgaves? Gebruik Online Touch: gebruiksaanwijzing digitaal maken.
SNV Connect 2012 Lees publicatie 100Home