NGO unveils Hmong language materials about nutrition for mother and child

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Illustrative image. Source: Save the Children

To promote proper nutritional practices to improve the nutritional status of children in Hmong communities in Yen Bai province, a set of educational audio materials including three songs and three stories in Hmong language have been developed.

The songs and the audio story (“Healthy mom, healthy kid) cover three stages of the child’s development: being in mommy’s womb, being born, and reaching 7 months old.

These materials are expected to help the caregivers, who do not understand and read Vietnamese language well, learn maternal and child nutritional care in an easier and more enjoyable way.

Save the Children developed this communication materials set as part of the “Northern Mountain Integrated Child Nutrition Improvement Project” with support from the Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF) through the World Bank.

This four-year project is implemented in Yen Bai and Son La provinces, targeting 20 communes in these provinces, comprising approximately 200 villages in the four districts of Yen Bai and Son La.

The project’s key objective is to improve the nutrition status of children under five through enhancing child feeding practices, maternal and child care, and to diversify sources of nutrition for pregnant women, infants and young children.

Audio materials helping members of the Mong ethnic minority learn about maternal and child nutritional care easier.

Vietnam has 54 ethnic groups. The 53 minority groups account for just 14.3% of the 97-million population. The ethnic minority groups live mainly in remote mountain and island areas.

Ethnic minority groups, however, are struggling with difficulties including low manpower quality, low socio-economic development, modest social service access, and the highest poverty rate due to geographic conditions, bad weather, poor infrastructure, low starting points, climate change, and serious environmental incidents, and high production costs.

The Hmong are the eighth largest minority group in Vietnam with a total population of about 600,000. They belong to the Sino-Tibetan language family and specifically the Hmong - Dao language group. They migrated from Southern China into North Vietnam over the last 250 to 300 years. They have mainly settled in the remote, mountainous areas of the North West, near the Lao and Chinese borders.

Under the national target program of socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas for 2021-2030, the National Assembly aims to fine-tune the legal system to better protect and promote human rights and citizen rights under the 2013 Constitution and international treaties Vietnam has signed.

The NA is particularly focused on fine-tuning laws to ensure human rights in civic, political, economic, social and cultural aspects and the specific rights of ethnic minority people.

Programs and policies to develop infrastructure, reduce poverty, improve social services, and preserve the culture of Vietnamese ethnic regions are all aimed at ensuring social equality and reducing gaps between regions and groups.

Hmong materials about nutrition for mother & child

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