As a group, we will work with the Medical Committee Netherlands Vietnam (MCNV). This organization aims to improve the health and inclusion of countries in Southeast Asia, with the main focus on factors such as nutrition, gender equity, female empowerment, and climate change adaptation. Their current project is based in Dong Xuan district of Phu Yen province (Vietnam), and aims to “boost income and jobs for poor women (BIJPOO)''. Ethnic minority communities live in this area and poverty is prevalent among them.
Together with MCNV, we consider the issue of food insecurity to be very relevant for these communities as, since 2017, different factors such as climate change, reduction of nutrient crop production, unstable jobs, and gender inequalities, have been affecting the farming practices and the overall economic market of these villages. The goals of this project cover different social and economic issues, such as promoting business training among those women, reducing the workload, and developing new techniques in response to the latest world challenges (i.g. Climate change, economic instability, pandemic). This project promotes sustainability on various levels. For example, environmental sustainability includes new practices that should mitigate land exploitation and soil erosion. Moreover, financial sustainability plays a core role in this project, as it provides poor households with grants and cooperatives for women's empowerment, which should then improve labor conditions and techniques. On the social level, the main focus is on nutrition and food insecurity. The last point of the sustainability project is the organizational one, which includes the Vietnamese government’s socio-economic development plan, and aims to develop successful models into plans.
Our goal as a group is to make a positive contribution to the work the organization is already doing. The objective is to look further into how the food security in the Phu Yen region can be improved. We will start by looking into various aspects that contribute to food insecurity, such as climate change, gender roles, and socio-economic factors. Later on, we will choose a specific and relevant topic to contribute to the goal of the BIJPOO project. We thereby aim to make a positive contribution to achieving the SDG to reduce hunger and nutritional insecurity.
