Thanks to the IECD’s basic management training course, Mrs. Bay is saving her business!

For the past two years, Mrs. Bay has been running a restaurant that specializes in grilled chicken along with her son and her daughter-in-law at their home in Chau Than. She also has a well from which she draws water and supplies about a nearby hundred houses. At the Women’s Union in the region of Tien Giang, a public organization created to help women, Mrs. Bay found solutions to her problems, in particular thanks to the Basic Management training course created by the IECD.

“Recently, my business had not been doing very well and I was no longer earning enough to meet the needs of the family, my husband and myself, my eldest son, his wife, and their baby, as well as my younger daughter who is still a student. I was also prevented from selling the water from my well by the municipal services because of non-compliance with health requirements: filtering the water or digging deeper were investments that were not possible for me.

It was at the Women’s Union that I found help.  I followed a course that helped me to redesign my offer and adjust my sales price according to the cost price. I also improved the packaging of my product in order to make it of better quality and more attractive.  I also installed a proper sign which attracts more customers.

At the same time, the Women’s Union helped me to reach an agreement with the municipality’s health services with regard to the problem of the quality of the water from my well, and to contact companies that could carry out the works. I obtained a microcredit from the WU and now the problem is in the process of being resolved.”

The IECD, the Women’s Union and the NMAV: a winning trio for supporting women entrepreneurs

The Women’s Union is an influential public organization in Vietnam, with a presence in all districts and all cities, created to help women and defend their rights and legitimate interests in a number of areas: education, health, work, legal support, employment, training, etc.

“Our partnership started with them in 2016 and involved communicating our training schedule to them at the start of the year, explains Thi Thuy Van HARDIVILLE, the IECD’s representative for the implementation of the Support for Small Enterprises Program in Vietnam. The aim is to guide women with small businesses towards Basic management training, or those wishing to create a business towards the “Top Départ” training course. Since last year, we have been lucky enough to work with NMAV, a Norwegian NGO that has many activities in the Mekong Delta, including a microcredit organization in partnership with the Women’s Union in Tien Giang. « 

Two thousand women supported by the mechanism by 2020

The NMAV aims to support a thousand people by 2020 and wants those likely to obtain these loans to be trained in the two modules mentioned above.

To achieve this goal, the IECD is offering to train more people at the Women’s Union in educational content and techniques in order to duplicate the courses throughout the Tien Giang region. On the one hand, this partnership allows the geographic distribution of the program, and, on the other, the transfer of skills to a local authority. Since November 2018, 13 new women trainers provided 7 training sessions with an average of 15 women per class.

Mrs. Pham Thi Thuyet Ly is one of these trainers:

“By joining the Women’s Union, I wanted to contribute to helping women from the region to become more independent and less financially dependent. I had previously worked in the planning service for the municipality of My Tho, and, sadly, I saw the difference in how men and women with equal skills were treated: despite my efforts, my work was never recognized as much as that of my male peers! To this is added family constraints which are not very compatible with a professional activity. Here, at the Women’s Union, we help women who want to create their own business and, because they often have very little education, we help to prepare administrative documents and grant applications. We also teach them how to manage a business.

Mrs. Pham is very positive about the training she received from the IECD in October 2018:

“The training was very intensive and not only covered content but also teaching techniques: how to teach adults, deal with difficult cases, etc. At the beginning, I did not have a great deal of confidence in myself and I didn’t think I was able to teach this type of course to a class of beneficiaries. But, after the training, I led a test class in my own town with the support of IECD trainers, I really enjoyed passing on what I had learned. This experience has taught me that nothing is impossible and that all difficulties can be overcome when you have the will and the motivation. «