« J’ai aussi vu que les gens de là-bas avaient du respect envers tout et surtout envers les plus anciens… qu’avec le peu qu’ils avaient, ils s’en sortaient. Alors, je me suis dit que j’allais m’intégrer et que pour ça je devais déjà avoir les mêmes valeurs qu’eux donc du respect, de la générosité. » (Extrait du témoignage de Florian).

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I am about a month in Vietnam now. Time to keep you a bit updated .

FYI:

I am in Quy Nhon, Vietnam, a VNCC: A Very Nice Coastal City. I am a “Junior Assistant” for BTC.
(Read more about this Junior Programme)
(Read interview with JP-coordinator)

In Quy Nhon, the Art of making Fisher Boats is intact!

Just a little impression of Quy Nhon’s little alleys and back streets…

My name is Ly, As Ly

From the very beginning when i was introduced in the group of young colleagues, they had already found a way to get round my difficult-to-pronounce-name. Would it be okay if they could call me Ly?
Though, some of them want to improve their english, so they try it with my real name. That’s why there’s also the name As Ly to hear around.
But do not worry; call for Ly, and i know you’re talking to me!

(In conversations at the table, though, you can hear lots of “Ly’s”: it also means “glass” (to drink from) and it’s the name of a certain flower.)

Me & my colleagues

I am very happy to introduce you: my project team VIE 0703511.

What do we do?

We are called a “provincial project management unit” (PPMU) and we support the water supply and integrated solid waste management in some rural areas of our province Binh Dinh.
Binh Dinh is divided into smaller regions: districts. In 6 of these we work together with the local governements (districts, communes, hamlets) and organisations.

We support the building of infrastructure, such as water pumps/water treatment plants/distribution networks (for water supply), or places to treat our waste (e.g. landfills). But … as always and anywhere, you cannot just “build infrastructure”… Are people interested to pay for the water in the pipelines? Sometimes they prefer to keep on using water from their own boreholes and wells … Or, should we just support the building of a place where we dump our solid waste, or a plant with high technology to make compost from our organic waste? In some cases the energy needed to run the machines is too expensive, or the landfill is just another end-of-the-pipeline-solution for our waste and will be filled up with waste after 15 years.

So what do we do, then? (and why am i here?)

Capacity building and awareness raising .

For example, for the waste problem: we see that the decision makers of the districts want to manage better the waste of their towns and villages, in a way that is “integrated”. It is not only about building a landfill to dump your waste, but about avoiding waste, reducing, reusing, composting, recycling, and if you really really need to: burn and/or dump. And a lot of different “parties” in our society are involved in this: the industry (e.g. who produces packaging for our food, who produces paint, …), the government (who makes up the law with rules we have to follow and ways to penalize if we don’t), commerce (e.g. who recycles our plastic bottles), citizen groups and the population (who buy or don’t buy packaged goods, who separate their waste), …

My colleagues and me thus work on a strategy and activities to “raise awareness” and “build capacities” on how we can manage our waste problem, together with the district government and organisations (people from departments of “agriculture and rural development”, “natural resources and environment”, “education and training”, …), the district women union, the district youth union, the district waste collector companies … . We will do this through trainings, visits to good examples, workshops and a lot of meetings and discussions. We will work with the Women Union, the Youth Union and the schools of the districts to organise campaigns and other activities to raise awareness amongst the people and find solutions for the waste problem (e.g. separation at home). A work of a bit longer than my 2 years here, ofcourse, but at least I can contribute!

The language of Vietnamese, and me

… I don’t really speak Vietnamese …
(Though i am taking a course, so it might improve to a certain extent…)

… and their English is not really exquisite …
(The situation is, if they speak English, it takes a bit of effort to understand what they are saying. For example: something pronounced like “hobbysto” – what makes me think my conversation partner is talking about a hobby store, but how can i understand this in our conversation about waste management? – is actually “hospital”. Or, what if they change all “p’s” for an “f” (since they might think a “p” is a “ph”)? Then you get this: “The froblem is on the folitical level”. They also tend to forget the last letters of the words: “You are very ni”, “You wan i in yo Ca Phé?”, “We nee to spea abou way we wan to ogani thi”.)
But after all: it seems my colleagues’ English improves incredibly quickly since I’m here!
(I hope my vietnamese will do so, too)

So, at work, we have an interpreter. She is Ngoc, 29, and i have great respect for her: she accompanies us everywhere we go for work, she constantly has to be concentrated on what people say in vietnamese, keep it in her head, translate (summarize) it for us, listen to our comments, translate again, listen, and so on. Meetings, discussions, interviews, visits, lunches/diners, … Ngoc is always on our side.

jeu de rôle "prison"

Il y a en effet un peu plus d’une semaine que les nouvelles recrues ont été accueillies par l’équipe du SVCD.  Jeunes, motivés et très sympathiques, elles s’intègrent petit à petit à leur nouvel environnement professionnel.  Il faut dire que les structures sont bien rodées et que le centre de formation de la CTB est performant.  Différents modules sont donnés aux nouveaux joueurs pendant trois semaines,  et nous sommes impatients de les voir en déplacement!!!

Premier match en janvier 2010, on leur souhaite à tous bonne chance!!!

Le premier novembre 2009, j’arrivais au Sénégal et plus précisément à Kaolack…. Bientôt un an et la fin d’une belle expérience…. C’est pourquoi, je tenais à vous faire partager mon expérience à travers une vidéo réalisée par la DRTS et produit par la RTS dans le cadre d’une caravane de presse…
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Ook de ontbossing slaat toe in Burundi. De bovenstaande foto’s zijn satellietopnames die het verdwijnen van het bos visualiseren. Gemiddeld ligt de graad van ontbossing hier op 5.2 procent per jaar. Niet dat ik alle dagen met de ontbossing wordt geconfronteerd, maar deze foto’s vielen me op tijdens de opleiding GIS verzorgd door Burundese proffen, gegeven voor de dienst Urbanisme van het Ministére de l’Eau, de l’Environnement, de l’Aménagement du territoire et de l’Urbanisme, en de dienst Geologie van het Ministère de l’Energie et des Mines – en aangeboden door ons project.
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