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"It's only a dream" is an educational 3D cartoon developed to raise the issues faced by young people in Viet Nam in sexual and reproductive health. This cartoon together with "I still believe" were shown on national TV.
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| OVERVIEW |
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The Programme
RHIYA Vietnam had two complimentary projects, one working on advocacy and BCC, the other on providing youth-friendly SRH services to Viet Nams youth. Both were supported by UPSU, the Umbrella Project Support Unit within the UNFPA office. Together they worked to achieve the goal of contributing to Improved sexual and reproductive health status of adolescent and young people in Viet Nam, especially the poor and deprived young people groups. The projects covered 22 communes, spread geographically across the country and targeted both in-school and out-of-school youth aged 10-24 from urban, semi-urban and rural areas with a particular emphasis on gender equity in SRH education and services.
The strategy for Viet Nam was to create a supportive enabling and policy environment in which to launch initiatives in SRH education and services. The key to achieving this was a cohesive capacity building effort among all government partners to develop a programme for change. The experiences in Viet Nam feature in a Thematic paper on Capacity Building in the RHIYA final publication A Catalyst for Change.
Key activities to promote RH knowledge and healthy behaviour were peer education within and out of schools, youth clubs, forums, theatre and other outreach events. These were underpinned by a BCC strategy which determined the key messages, channels of communication and material used.
Twenty youth friendly service corners were set up offering information, counselling and clinical services and during the RHIYA period provided clinical services for almost 34,000 young people.
Source: Ahn, a 21 year old student of psychology
Achievements
The RHIYA Baseline and Endline surveys show that young peoples knowledge of SRH issues has increased across all indicators and across all cross sections of the youth population. The number of young people who used contraception the last time they had sex increased by twenty percent. In RHIYA project areas many more young people are discussing sexual and reproductive health issues and almost 90% of young people feel that contraception is easily available.
The development of an advocacy strategy in Viet Nam is guiding efforts to change policy. To date significant concrete achievements have been made in the integration of sexual and reproductive health issues into the first ever Youth Law, which was approved by the National parliament in November 2005. In addition, efforts under RHIYA ensured the recognition of special needs of vulnerable youth in the Master Plan for Adolescent and Youth Health 2006 2010. These achievements are documented in booklet and case studies Opening the Doors to the Corridors of Power: Good Practices in Advocating for Policy Development
Another important achievement was the development of an ARH Toolkit, a comprehensive planning, implementing and monitoring tool for the provision of Youth Friendly Services.
The Way Forward
There is still much to be done in Viet Nam to ensure sexual and reproductive services and rights for young people. Recommendations from a RHIYA commissioned study on ASRH, endorsed by Vietnamese Parliamentarians point to the need for increased commitment to implementing and monitoring policies. In the coming years it will be vital to scale up interventions using successful models such as those developed under the RHIYA. There is a need to diversify and expand the ASRH service provision network to meet growing demand and ensure integration of all services into the public health infrastructure.
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| PROFILE |
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History / Culture: Vietnam has a long and eventful history, including a bloody past as part of the French colonial Empire; military and economic US involvement in its internal affairs resulting in a war from 1959 to 1975; border clashes with Cambodia and with China. Regarding its location, it is not surprising that Vietnam is a diverse country, containing some 54 distinct ethnic groups. Vietnam is a Socialist Republic. The majority of the population does not have any religion, while there are about 10% of Buddhists and 8% of Catholics.
Geography: Viet Nam is a long narrow country, which lies along the western shore of the South China Sea. Vietnam has a Northern border with China and a Western border with Lao PDR and Cambodia. It is divided into 64 provinces, with 633 districts.
Population / Demography: Vietnams population in 2005 reached 83.6 million, ranking 14th among the worlds most populous nations, and 3rd within the South-East Asia region. Rapid socio-economic change is accelerating the countrys transition from a largely rural society to an urban one. Vietnamese are on the move. By 2020, 55% of the entire population will live in towns and cities. International migration is becoming a key development issue. Most people (74.6%) in Vietnam live and take up farming in rural areas (General Statistics Office, 2004). The annual population growth in the period between1989-1999 was 1.64%.
Economy / Productivity: Viet Nam has also one of south-east Asia's fastest-growing economies and has set its sights on becoming a developed nation by 2020.The economy has been growing by over 7% per year for the past several years, raising incomes and reducing poverty levels. Still, some 30% of the total population continues to live in poverty, with most of the disadvantaged concentrated in rural areas.Viet Nam has already met the target of halving poverty by reducing the proportion of people living below the poverty line to approximately 35 per cent in 2000.
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| BACKGROUND |
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Characteristics of Youth and Adolescent Population: Traditionally, young adulthood (18-24) and adolescence (10-17) are not distinguished in Vietnam, and the term youth is employed for both phases (UNESCO). Vietnam has approximately 24 million people aged 10-24 years old and the proportion of population aged 15-24 years old represents more than 20% of the total population. Vietnamese population is therefore very young; the median age of the population is around 25 years old (UNFPA). Matters such as corruption, drugs, commercial sex work, HIV/AIDS infection, and natural migration are having a great influence on the social order in Vietnam and are strongly affecting Vietnamese youth.
Education / Socio-Economic Development: The average literacy rate is about 90%, including males and females, even though enrolments in secondary level are very low. Besides the undeniable achievements of economic-social developments in the past decade, the integration and open policy has also increasingly born cultural and social challenges. . Young people tend to migrate to urban areas for employment. Despite government's efforts to reduce poverty, there are still an important number of street children in the big cities, who come from different areas and backgrounds. The majority of them are females (35% in 1997 to over 47% in 1999-UNESCO). They are a vulnerable population to SRH issues. All in all, poverty and literacy rates slightly depend on the disparities between rural and urban areas.
Health / Knowledge on Sexuality and Reproductive Health: Studies have shown that most adolescents that have pre-marital sex do not use any contraception. Each year there are thousands of abortion cases (0.6 abortion case per childbirth) (MoH, 1999), one third of which are by young unmarried women. Recently, large-scale research has also shown that in every 3 single males aged from 22-25, one male has sexual relations, (MoH 2004). Studies on sexuality and violence revealed that many women feel a lack of control in their relationship with men. Barriers restricting parent-adolescent communication on sexuality as parents fear that talking about sexuality will encourage their children to experiment with sex. First birth is around 23 years. Abortion is legal and family planning services are easily accessible.
The proportion of the adolescents infected by sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), especially HIV/AIDS is increasing as they lack knowledge of precautionary measures. In Vietnam, HIV/AIDS cases in the 20-29 year age group has increased from 15.0% in 1993 to 72.0% in 2004 (NCADP, 2004) and unsafe sexual relations are predicted to be the main reason for transmitting diseases in the future. Drug use and prostitution are also increasing in the youth.
Traditional Values and Attitudes: While more young people are engaging in sexual activities at an early age, Vietnamese women are still expected to be virgins until marriage but young men are expected to be experienced. As virginity is still prized, premarital sex creates a sense of shame, not only among young women but also among their parents and teachers. Men are perceived as the centre of the family and are respected. Women are subordinated, should make the family happy and have to be loyal to their husbands. Increasingly, love and marriage are romanticised. The average age of first sexual encounter is 19.6. Marriage is usually between 22 -25 - the legal age of marriage is 18 years for women and 20 for men. First marriage is 25.5 year for men and 20 years for women.
Choosing ones own spouse independently occurs but the major share the decision with their families.
Actions: Viet Nam is committed to reduce the poverty rate by a further 40 per cent by 2010. While these are impressive achievements, the challenge now is to reduce increasing disparities and reach deep pockets of poverty in each region of the country. Moreover, the Vietnamese government, conscious of SRH problems, is committed to afford RH services for adolescents, and to increase information and advocacy activities.
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