Project Profile: “Advocacy & Behavior Change Communication”

This project was executed by the Viet Nam Youth Union (VYU) and implemented by the UNESCO Non-Formal Education Centre (UCNEV), the Love, Marriage and Family Counseling Centre (LMF) as well as the VYU itself. CARE Vietnam and World Population Foundation (WPF) acted as technical agencies for the project.

The project aimed at improving healthy behaviour, practices and awareness among poor and deprived population groups, since A/Y in Vietnam lacked of information and knowledge regarding SRH and existing youth friendly services resulting in high ratios of abortion and STIs, including HIV/AIDS. VYU also aimed at improving young people’s RH status, to help them having a right decision to protect their own health.

VYU therefore identified the need to build an enabling environment for ASRH interventions and to address the underlying policy framework. SRH was indeed still considered as a private and sensitive issues in Vietnam, seen as only related to procreation.

Strategy: This project focused on creating a support mechanism giving youth the opportunity to practice protected SRH. It put a particular emphazis on advocacy and behavioural change communication (BCC) for young people, key stakeholders at the local and central levels. Both advocacy and BCC strategies focused on unwanted pregnancy, unsafe abortion, HIV/AIDS and discrimination against PLWHA, STIs/RTIs and sexual abuse.

VYU’s tactic to solve these problems focused on creating an enabling environment, through ensuring the commitment of relevant decision-makers and governmental bodies, including the Ministry of Health (MoH), by providing them information in the process of developing policy favouring RH and related rights. In addition, VYU ensured youth participation and involvement in all SRH advocacy initiatives as a key cross-cutting element to meet the quality requirements and transfer key messages of advocacy and BCC strategies to the target communities in general and to their peers particularly.

Further, VYU developped advocacy and BCC materials/tools respecting social norms and cultural practices, organized advocacy campaigns and regular dialogue between youth and policy makers, encouraged health promoting behaviours by increasing SRH information, counselling and youth-friendly services. The project was executed through the SRH Programme Management Board (PMB).

Outputs: 1) Establish an enabling environment for youth-oriented RH information and services at the national and local level: Various advocacy activities were held to raise awareness on the needs for ASRH education, rights and care. At central level, foras, meetings workshops and dialogues etc. attended by policy makers from the National Assembly and relevant sectors, mass media and A/Y, successfully advocate for integrating disadvantaged and vulnerable A/Y in the intervention groups of the National Master Plan and for integrating ASRH issues and rights in the Law on Youth. At the local level, 850 advocacy events were held, such as 4 ASRH advocacy forums involving local influential people and youth to support A/Y access to ASRH information and services, and promote youth participation in advocacy activities. A remarkable activity was the social mapping that was held to reduce stigma and discrimination towards MSM. In addition, youth participated in developing guidelines for building advocacy skills, booklets on “Information for ASR rights”, posters, and newsletters. These were distributed in communities and YFCs.

2) Sustain behaviour change through increased knowledge and awareness of RH issues among youth. BCC activities helped A/Y to decide about their SRH practices since they were equipped with adequate information. Through club meetings, A/Y enhanced their capacity to facilitate group discussion on different SRH/HIV-AIDS issues. Through forums youths could share their point of view, express their needs and attitudes towards SRH and related issues. Key messages of the forums were disseminated in newspapers, and on TV / radio. The programme also provided in and out of school peer education. PE were selected by LMF and UCNEV (50% of female) and trained on SRH issues, counselling and communication defined in the BCC strategies, including on PLWHA care. In addition outreach activities such as 8 SRH/HIV-AIDS contests attracted about 5000 youths. Further, BCC manual and a full range of IEC materials were developed with youth and distributed through YFCs. Key materials were two educational 3D cartoons on SRH and PLWHA which were very popular in and out of the country and were showed on TV 20 times. Lien cartoon?. There was also a booklet guiding on how to use the film and hold discussion on film content.

3) Increased utilization of quality reproductive health services by adolescents and youth at risk: This output was achieved under the VINAFPA project.

4) Strengthened technical, planning and management capacity for local NGOs/partners in the provision of A/Y oriented RH services: Activity, M&E and financial plans were developed through planning and orientation workshops to help project staffs to enhance their capacities. Advocacy and BCC strategy were developed in a comprehensive way (participatory, gender sensitive and right based approach) using a participatory approach to ensure ownership of partners and tight collaboration. Besides, 8 TOT courses on advocacy, BCC, RH rights and gender were organised for project staffs, YFC staffs, Youth Union staffs, parents and youth. At the local level, a number of trainings on SRH, gender, counselling and youth friendly services were organised to sensitize peers and local partners. At the central level, VYU and VINAFPA developed joint action plans and collaborated among them and with IAs and TAs. In additon, 60 M&E trips were organized to monitor activities and outcomes. These provided partners with feedbacks and recommendation for follow up actions.

Lessons learned: Project design: Ideally, interventions of the two projects would be implemented at the same project sites. However, this only occurred in Hanoi, HCMC and Hoa Binh Province. To overcome this shortfall, an information sharing network was established at the local level, and a concrete plan for coordination was developed to ensure close collaboration between local Youth Union and Youth Friendly Corners. However, despite efforts, collaboration between the two projects varied, depending on staff’s willingness and capacity.

Participatory approach brought benefits for the beneficiaries: The project contributed to create the favourable environment and to strengthen youth participation. Youth wished to take the active role in all activities and gain knowledge, experiences and skills through their involvement. However, there were differences between youth and adult participation. Youths did not involve in activity planning, monitoring and evaluation as they often lacked knowledge and capacity. Due to time and resource constraints only in school youth had chance to participate in most project activities. There were also policy makers who were not fully aware of or did not appreciate the true benefits brought by youth participation.

Successful gender mainstreaming requires strong personal and organisational capacity and commitment. Many RHIYA partners still hold traditional views on gender norms and stereotypes. Low gender sensitivity and capacity for gender mainstreaming constrained the mainstreaming process and limited achievements in this area.

Advocacy activities conducted at central and local level documented as the Good Practice for RHIYA Vietnam. The practice detailed the process to advocate (1) Youth Law Composing Board to integrate SRH issues and rights into the Law on Youth; (2) the Ministry of Health to integrate disadvantaged and vulnerable groups into the National Master Plan on Protection, CARE and Promotion of A/Y Health for the period 2006-2010. Advocacy activities conducted at the local level were also mentioned in the document.

Commitment from the local authorities, leaders, and core youth is essential for maintaining the operation of models after the project ends. Under RHIYA programme, some YFCs can be maintained in terms of finance, but it was not the same to YFCs established in rural areas.

Partner Profile: Vietnam Youth Union The goals and activities of the VYU are: - Ideological education for youth - Encouraging youth volunteers to implement national key programs and projects - Youth involvement in socio-economic development and protection - Care and education for children and adolescents (to participate in education to shape a generation of Vietnamese children and adolescents, making them intellectually healthy, physically strong, morally balanced...) - HIV/AIDS prevention, reproductive health care, environmental protection, drugs and social evils prevention

Contact: Vietnam Youth Union 60 Ba Trieu Street Hanoi Vietnam