Partnership promises more local history education in Hà Nội

The history of Thăng Long Imperial Citadel will be taught at more schools in Hà Nội. 

A refreshed heritage education programme in Hà Nội’s schools will see Thăng Long Imperial Citadel and Cổ Loa relic site added to more curricula.

The programme was first established five years ago as part of a Government push to preserve historical relics in the city. Now, it will be strengthened thanks to a co-operation agreement between Hà Nội’s Education and Training Department (ETD) and the Thăng Long-Hà Nội Heritage Conservation Centre.

Speaking at the signing ceremony on Wednesday, ETD Director Chử Xuân Dũng said he hoped the updated programme would nurture interest in local history and culture among children. He encouraged them to learn more about the heritage of the historic city in which they live.

Schools will coordinate with the preservation board to organise tours of the citadel as an extracurricular activity. 

According to Dũng, the conservation centre has designed learning programmes to suit different age groups.

The centre offers informational tours and talks with historians, and will teach students how to make traditional crafts such as paper fans, pottery and printing.

Tours of the Cổ Loa citadel relic site also include folk games such as tug of war and crossbow shooting, an activity associated with legends about the citadel.

Trần Việt Anh, the centre’s director, said the sides will assess and update the programme yearly based on feedback from teachers and students.

The centre developed the programming with help from UNESCO’s Hà Nội office and the Việt Nam Association of Historical Sciences.

Michael Croft, head of the UNESCO office in Hà Nội, expressed how glad he and his organisation could help develop the heritage education policy.

“It is our pleasure to be here with you all today to witness how this policy comes to life with determination and support from all relevant partners on the ground,” he said. “This is a partnership between Thăng Long Citadel World Heritage site and the Hà Nội Department of Education and Training that has resulted in a concrete plan of action.”

Croft highlighted the history of the site, which has been the political, economic and cultural centre of the Vietnamese nation for the past 1,000 years. He said many UNESCO projects have been designed to connect communities to their heritage.

Last year, more than 3,900 students participated in educational activities at the citadel, and more than 18,000 children attended other activities such as Lunar New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival held at the site.

Thăng Long Imperial Citadel was recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2010.

Cổ Loa Citadel was built during the end of the Hồng Bàng Dynasty (about 257 BC), 20km north of today’s Hà Nội.

Smart healthcare system, new cancer treatments featured at expo

A smart healthcare system allows patients to register for medical appointments very quickly.

A smart healthcare system will save time for patients and increase the efficiency of treatment, medical experts said yesterday at a seminar on “Smart Healthcare in the 4.0 Industrial Revolution”.

The event was held as part of a four-day Pharmed & Healthcare Vietnam expo that featured the latest cancer treatments and smart advances in healthcare systems.

Trần Quý Tường, head of the Electronic Health Administration, said that only 30 seconds were needed for patients to register for a medical appointment using a smart healthcare system, instead of waiting a long time at hospitals. Patients can schedule a suitable date and time for appointments on a hospital’s website.

The system is based on three main pillars: smart clinic, smart medical services and smart medical management.

If all pillars work well, they can improve healthcare services. For the development of a smart healthcare system, there is a need for a basic legal framework, a national health database centre, and technical infrastructure, according to Tường.

In addition, the Department of Health of each locality should use a smart system for medical management, develop online services, and receive and transfer high technology to use for pharmaceutical production, medical equipment and vaccines.

HCM City Medical University Hospital has a self-registration area and is issuing electronic invoices. Patients can register for medical examinations and receive invoices through the hospital’s website.

In addition, patients’ health records are digitalised under the smart healthcare system.

Nguyễn Hoàng Bắc, director of the HCM City Medical University Hospital, said that electronic health records can help save time for treatment, and search for related information. It also supports doctors by monitoring patient’s situations.

However, only a few hospitals in the country are using this system due to a lack of infrastructure, equipment and human resources.

By 2030, the health sector expects to expand the smart healthcare system to all hospitals in the country.

New cancer treatment

At the expo yesterday, the Vietnam-Japan International JSC and ADPEX JSC held a seminar on “Measures to prevent cancer and heart-related diseases”.

The Vietnam-Japan International JSC introduced new therapies such as stem cell therapy, immunotherapy and functional foods to use in the prevention of cancer and heart-related diseases.

According to a Japanese expert, immunotherapy has a positive effect in the treatment of cancer by killing cancer cells in the body.

At the event,  Japanese experts described how Japanese use food supplement to protect and promote health.

The seminar was held to raise public awareness about prevention of cancer and heart-related diseases. 

Cà Mau calls for help in search for lost fishermen

Cà Mau Province is continuing to search for six missing fishermen. — Illustration Photo

The Natural Disaster Prevention and Search and Rescue Service Committee in the southernmost province of Cà Mau has called for help in the search for six missing fishermen.

On Wednesday, at 5:30pm, a crew member from vessel KG-93689 TS fell overboard.

Two other boats nearby began searching for the missing fisherman but have been unable to locate him.

On August 31, Trần Văn Vũ, captain of fishing vessel BT-97326 TS in Bến Tre Province also reported two crew members missing while travelling from Hon Khoai Island, Cà Mau province.

Earlier in September, three other men from two fishing boats were also reported missing.

The search continues for the six missing men.

The committee has requested local border guards, the Coastal Information Station and the Fisheries Sub-Department to inform fishing vessels nearby to help with the search.

On-site reproductive, family planning services improve female factory workers’ health, productivity

More than 27,000 female workers have been provided information about sexual and reproductive healthcare and family planning as the result of the Business Partnership Platform (BPP) funded by the Australian government.

A dissemination workshop was held today at Pou Yuen Co., Ltd in Tân Tạo Industrial Zone in the city’s Bình Tân District to share the impact and key findings from November 2016 to June 2018.

The project’s aims including improving the health and well-being of Pou Chen Group’s predominantly female workforce by enhancing the provision of specialist sexual and reproductive healthcare on-site at its Pou Yuen factory.

Nguyễn Trọng Hậu, director of the initiative, said nearly 80,000 workers at the factory have accessed reproductive and family planning information and services through the on-site BlueStar clinic, located inside the factory since 2016.

The BPP initiative has helped more than 900 female workers access on-site healthcare services, and over 850 workers have avoided unintended pregnancies.

Service quality has also been improved through clinical and service training for 38 health staff at the factory; clinical supervision; and a client-centered clinic offering safe, confidential, and non-judgmental service.

As a result, the number of clinic visits has increased tenfold, reaching an average of up to 2,000 clients per month in 2018, Hậu said.

Trần Thị Thu Hiền, 24, a worker at the factory, 24, said: “Now I don’t need to go to the hospital because BlueStar has all the services that I need, and the doctors are very good and friendly. It’s also very convenient for me to save a lot of time and money.”

The project has also incorporated a wide range of education and communications activities, reaching over 90 per cent of female workers, and has provided comprehensive counseling to allow women to make the most appropriate contraceptive choice.

“Last time I chose an intra-uterine device because it was the only long-term family planning method that I knew. When I visited the BlueStar clinic, doctors provided counseling and answered all my questions. I decided to choose the contraceptive implant,” Phạm Thị Thu Hương, a worker in Pou Yuen factory, said.

In addition, a network of workers representatives was trained as peer educators to provide SRH information to female workers, and gained leadership and communications skills.

Cù Phát Nghiệp, the factory’s chairman of the trade union, said there were many other useful activities, especially the worker representative programme and communications sessions by Marie Stopes International Việt Nam, which enhanced knowledge about reproductive services and increased productivity.

The worker health programme in Việt Nam has shown impressive results, especially compared to other countries in the region, according to Nguyễn Bích Hằng, Country Representative of Marie Stopes in Việt Nam.

She said that success had resulted from three main factors: understanding of worker’s needs, quality and comprehensive SRH services, and dedication to improving gender equality.

“I hope the project will be able to continue to contribute to and support many more female factory workers to access high-quality sexual and reproductive health care, leverage business benefits and demonstrate social responsibility," she said.

Headquartered in the UK, Marie Stopes International (MSI) is a leading international non-governmental organisation providing sexual and reproductive health and family planning services, working in 37 countries across six continents.

In 2016, MSI served over 25 million women globally, generating over 32 million couple years of protection.

Marie Stopes International Việt Nam was established in 1989 and has been working closely with government agencies and non-governmental organisations to implement sexual and reproductive health and family planning programmes across the country. 

Mid-Autumn Festival charity programmes held for children

Soldiers of Military Staff Board in Bình Phước Province’s Bù Đốp District and members of HCM Communist Youth Union in the district’s Hưng Phước border commune have made hundreds of lanterns for children on the occasion of the Mid-Autumn Festival. 

Soldiers of the Military Staff Board in Bình Phước Province’s Bù Đốp District and members of the HCM Communist Youth Union in the district’s Hưng Phước border commune have made hundreds of lanterns for children on the occasion of the Mid-Autumn Festival, or Full Moon Festival, falling on September 24.

Children who live in rural and border gate areas nationwide have enjoyed a warm Mid-Autumn Festival thanks to other charity programmes.

The programmes have been held by many different state-owned organisations in co-operation with companies.

On September 23, nearly 800 children from shelters and charity schools in HCM City and Bình Dương Province will be expected to attend a programme called Dreamed Mid-Autum Festival in the city’s Book Street on Nguyễn Văn Bình Street in District 1.

In the programme, they will be presented with gifts including bags, candy, cakes and notebooks.

Meals also will be provided to them. Moreover, they will play traditional games such as decorating lanterns and others and enjoy lion dance and magic shows.

On the occasion of Mid-Autumn festival, the Child Protection Fund of Bình Dương province also held a Mid-Autumn Festival and Scholarship Granting for Disadvantaged Students and Children programme on September 19.

As the part of the programme, URC Vietnam, which is a subsidiary of URC Philippines and is 100 per cent owned by URC, presented 30 scholarships and 200 gifts to the programme’s beneficiaries.

The programme also featured a variety of activities that benefit needy children, including visits to historical places and many playful exchange activities.

At the programme, the Child Protection Fund granted bicycles, computers and a total of 1,000 Mid-Autumn gifts for children.

On September 15, the Youth Social Work Centre of HCM City co-operated with charity groups and clubs to hold a programme with the title of Childhood Moon 2018 at Hưng Long Secondary School in the city’s outlying Bình Chánh District.

In the programme, more than 300 disadvantaged children in the district’s Hưng Long Commune were helped to make lanterns and have their hair cut.

They enjoyed music shows and were taught knowledge about traffic safety, and were given helmets.

The centre is carrying out entertainment programmes for child patients in pediatric hospitals in Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu Province’s Long Điền District, Vĩnh Long and Bình Thuận provinces.

Bình Thuận Province’s HCM Communist Youth Union has carried out many programmes for children in the province’s remote communes of Phú Lạc, Mỹ Thạnh and La Dạ where ethnic minority groups including K’ho and Raglai live.

The province People’s Committee has instructed relevant agencies to carry out many activities for children to enjoy the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival. 

An Giang Province to reduce number of poor households

The Mekong Delta Province of An Giang aims to reduce the number of poor households this year to 3.9 per cent.

The province had 45,789 poor households in 2016, or 8.5 per cent of the total. The rate fell to 5.2 per cent last year.

The People’s Committee of An Giang Province on Thursday held a conference to evaluate the poverty reduction programme in the 2016-20 period.

Since 2016, the province has supported vocational training programme for 75,400 workers, created jobs for 91,697 people, and reduced the unemployment rate in the urban area to 4 per cent.

The province has provided 792,692 health insurance for the poor, and provided houses for 1,167 poor households from loans and the provincial budgets.

The province has supported 66,920 households with total loans of VNĐ1.5 trillion (US$64.4 million).

In addition, the province has policies to support legal aid, electricity, and water for the poor.

Nguyễn Thành Bình, deputy chairman of People’ Committee of An Giang Province, said that poverty reduction was effective but not sustainable.

Vocational programme and jobs creation for people in rural areas is still not effective.

Bình instructed the Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affair to raise public awareness, and localities to review and classify households in the province. 

Better, universal payment system needed for public transit: experts

Experts have recommended that a contactless payment system should be used in HCM City on public transport systems. 

A contactless payment system for public transport in HCM City could save costs and increase customer satisfaction, experts said at a conference on modern payments systems for public transit on Friday.

Lê Hoàn of the HCM City Management Centre of Public Transport said that buses satisfied only 4.7 per cent of the city’s travel needs, and that most passengers still used printed tickets.

The city has been developing a smart card system which allows passengers to use cards issued by bus companies that are topped up with money to purchase digital tickets, without using cash.

However, he said the city should focus on linking different ticketing systems together into a more universal one.

Trần Đăng Thành, a representative from HCM City Management Authority for Urban Railways, said that many of its ongoing public transport projects are being carried out by many investors under different policies.

“Currently different public transport systems use different types of smart cards, which can be inconvenient for passengers. A single type of card that can be used for all public transport is needed.”

However, this can be a difficult process due to the lack of research into a universal, central server that could process different transportation data, as well as a lack of universal standards for ticketing policies among different public transit systems.

Manoj Sugathan, senior director of Visa Asia Pacific’s Chip, Contactless and Transit Programmes, said that an open-loop contactless payment system (which is being used or piloted in many developed cities and countries) can be applied to public transit in HCM City

The EMV (Europay, Mastercard and Visa) contactless payment technology can be used for debit, credit, and prepaid cards, allowing users to pay for tickets on different public transport systems quickly, without the need to buy specific tickets.

This saves ticket printing and management costs as well as time, and not much infrastructure changes are needed.

The conference was organised by HCM City Department of Transport and Visa, and was attended by over 100 representatives from different companies and city authorities.

Cities must improve fire prevention work: Deputy PM

Scene of the blaze at Hà Nội’s Paediatrics Hospital lastweek. 

The capacity of fire rescue and prevention services in provinces and cities should be considered among criteria to assess local competitiveness, said Deputy Prime Minister Trịnh Đình Dũng.

The proposal looked to urge localities nationwide to pay attention to fire rescue and prevention work in order to reduce human and property damage, he said at an online fire safety conference with 63 provinces and cities yesterday morning.

A recent series of fires caused huge losses to human life and property, including the latest blaze at Hà Nội’s Paediatrics Hospital this week. Previously, the Carina apartment building fire in HCM City clamed the lives of 13 residents in March this year and a karaoke bar fire on Trần Thái Tông Street killed 13 people in late 2016.

The Deputy Prime Minister said that these tragedies were partly caused by a lack of awareness.

A number of officials, including leaders of localities and sectors, as well as residents, were not fully aware of the importance of fire prevention work, he said.

Investment for development had been boosted, but investment in preventing such incidents had not received the same level of attention, he said.

He also mentioned the fact that high rises failed to meet fire safety standards but were still constructed and opened in densely-populated areas, which led to huge losses when fires broke out.

“Cities with high populations must mobilise quick-response teams to fires. Fire prevention work must take structure and property protection measures into account,” Dũng said.

He highlighted that fire prevention work must first and foremost ensure human lives before reducing property damage.

He asked sectors and localities to point out irrelevant parts of current legal documents in terms of technical standards and criteria in investment and construction to make fire prevention work better.

He urged for tightened regulations in operating apartment buildings, including asking high rise investors and management boards to bear responsibility for the maintenance of fire prevention systems, especially in resettlement buildings and social housing.

“Heads of localities must be responsible for any serious human and property damage caused by explosions and fires in the areas they manage,” Dũng said.

According to the Ministry of Public Security report presented at the conference, as many as 2,089 fires and explosions were reported in the first half of this year, claiming the lives of 68 people, injuring 151 others and causing property losses of over VNĐ1.3 trillion. Failures in electrical systems, petrol and chemicals are the leading cause of the blazes. 

Ninh Thuận to breed more sheep, goats for commercial production

The south-central province of Ninh Thuận, the country’s largest animal producer, is strengthening measures to breed more sheep, goats, pigs and other animals for commercial production.

The province has more than 160,000 sheep and 137,900 goats, ranking first in the country as a sheep producer and eighth in goat production, according to the province’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The province has more than 112,000 oxen and cows, 3,800 buffalos and 92,000 pigs. 

In Ninh Thuận, which has the least rainfall in the country, farmers mostly breed animals outdoors and on a small scale. 

Development projects have taken up land that was once used for outdoor rearing areas for sheep and goats.

Climate change has also caused a decline in quality of natural grass fields and water resources for animals, affecting their yield and quality.

To expand the local breeding industry, Ninh Thuận has provided soft loans for farmers to plant grass fields and invest in clean water provision for animals.

Local authorities have helped rice farmers switch to growing grasses for animals in areas that often lack irrigation water and plant only one rice crop a year.  

In the first five months of the year, farmers have so far planted more than 1,200ha of grasses with a total output of 163,000 tonnes, meeting 31 per cent of food for the province’s animals, according to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. 

The province’s Agriculture Extension Centre has provided advanced rearing techniques for animal farmers, including sterilising barns monthly and providing periodic baths for animals.

Phan Quang Thựu, deputy director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the province was enhancing co-operation among farmers, scientists, local authorities and companies to create value chains for breeding animals.

The province had developed co-operatives to create stronger links between farmers and companies, Thựu said.

According to Phạm Minh Quang, director of the Tân Hà Co-operative in Thuận Nam District’s Nhị Hà Commune, his co-operative has applied advanced techniques in building animal barns, choosing animal strains and breeding techniques, and treating animal diseases.

With the decline of natural grass fields, the co-operative has switched from feeding sheep on grass fields to indoor rearing, which has helped to reduce risks and disease, making the sheep grow faster. 

The co-operative has invested in planting more than 1 ha of grass which has an output of 700 kilos a day that feeds the co-operative’s sheep.

The co-operative sells about 100 male sheep every three months, while each sheep weighs about 30 kilos.

The co-operative earns revenue of VNĐ1 billion (US$43,000) a year.

Under a provincial People’s Committee plan, Ninh Thuận targets having a total of 190,000 sheep, including 45,000 females, by 2020.

Material prosperity must be accompanied by fulfilling spiritual life: PM Phúc

A local resident receives treatment at Đưng K’Nớh Commune Medical Centre in Lạc Dương District in the Highlands Central Province of Lâm Đồng. The commune has accomplished 10 out 19 criteria for the new rural areas. 

A life of material abundance but cultural and spiritual poverty is meaningless, Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc said.

“We are building a socialist-oriented market economy, not a market society,” the Government leader said yesterday during a conference marking nearly a decade since the launching of the movement “All people united to build cultural life.”

From the early 1990s, socio-economic conditions started to improve and Vietnamese people’s worries were no longer solely about making ends meet. They started to have more time to be concerned about living fulfilling cultural and spiritual lives.

Originally a small contest between six households in a rural hamlet of the northern province Hưng Yên in the 1960s, the criteria for a “cultured village” were adopted by Trang Liệt Village in Bắc Ninh Province and Nông Cống Village in Thanh Hoá Province in the 1980s. Their experiences created the foundations for the very first “cultured life” and “cultured families” in Việt Nam.

The movement of building "cultural villages" was officially adopted at the fifth Resolution of the 8th Party Congress in 1998. The movement is a uniting force, tying together disparate campaigns and movements from poverty reduction, national defence and sports promotion to spreading models of “good people, good deeds.”

By 2017, 19 million Vietnamese households have been granted the title of “cultured families,” while the cultural life of 69,000 villages, hamlets, and neighbourhoods in the country has been acknowledged as up to par.

About 3,500 communes have been certified as “new rural commune” – a term encompassing various aspects of socio-economic development as well as cultural targets – accounting for nearly 40 per cent of all communes across the country.

Quoting the late President Hồ Chí Minh in saying, “Culture is the guiding light for the nation,” PM Phúc stressed the need to build a robust culture that can serve as a foundation for the development of a “Vietnamese people with confidence, bravery and the capacity to join the global community, who can simultaneously resist the negative cultural aspects of globalisation."

At the conference, Deputy PM Đam called for the country to take a hard look at the reality of the culture and ethical values among people of all walks of life were “seeing signs of decline,” even in the ranks of Government officials and Party members, and those from highly respected professions such as teachers, doctors and religious leaders.

“Cultural life” activities in many localities had become mostly for show, while efforts to build a new rural paradigm had focused heavily on hard infrastructure and neglected the core component, which is culture, the Deputy PM said.

“It could be said that the movement has not retained the original sense of excitement, nor has it achieved the practical and permeating scope in its early years,” he added, urging cultural officials to conduct a comprehensive review of the titles.

The online conference attracted about 15,000 delegates from central to local levels.