SOCIAL IN BRIEF 4/7

Pests irritate residents in Hau Giang province; Voluntary guards to man level crossings; Hue orphans get free swimming lessons; EC approves scholarship programme for Vietnamese students; Humanitarian programme for disabled launched

The volunteers will evaluate information and advise people on rules to improve safety.

The Viet Nam Railway Corporation is opening guard points, with the help of volunteers, where roads built by residents cross tracks in Ha Noi.

The volunteers will evaluate information and advise people on rules to improve safety. More than 90 per cent of railway accidents are at crossings.

Hue orphans get free swimming lessons

Around 150 orphans from charity centres in Hue on Wednesday began a six-week swimming course organised by British charity Hue Help.

The course, also sponsored by the Thua Thien-Hue Province Union of Friendship Organisations and the city’s Sport Centre, aims to provide basic swimming skills for the orphans.

VietNamNet/VNS

EC approves scholarship programme for Vietnamese students

The European Commission has approved two proposals for partnership projects under the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window (EMECW) for the academic year of 2009-2010.

Around 9 million EUR will be granted for these two projects in which 71 Vietnamese students and scholars will participate, as part of regional and multilateral networking between higher education institutions in Europe, Southeast Asia and Central Asia.

These networks will contribute to joint education and research in relevant thematic fields such as engineering, business, agriculture, social sciences and also build models and procedures for knowledge and technology transfer and business related initiatives.

The EMECW was initiated for Asia in 2005 as a complement to the Erasmus Mundus programme which provides grants to consortia of higher education institutions from Europe and from third countries which together draw up a mobility scheme.

Mobility schemes selected through annual Calls for Proposals comprise individual mobility for students and academic staff.

Since 2004, over 300 Vietnamese students and scholars have been awarded with scholarships of Erasmus Mundus and Erasmus Mundus Cooperation Window programmes.

Humanitarian programme for disabled launched

A programme to help the disabled integrate into the community was launched in the northern port city of Hai Phong on July 2 by several local enterprises.

The “For Equality and Communal Integration” programme is in response to the decade of the disabled in Asia and the Pacific in the 2003-2012 period.

Vo Thi Hong Anh, director of the Bao Chung Vision Impaired Joint Stock Company and director of the programme, said the programme will focus on improving the disabled’s access to education, vocational training and suitable jobs, thus gaining full equality and integration.

According to the Institute for Social Research, Vietnam has bout 5.4 million disabled people. Of them, about 41 percent have never held a job and only one quarter of the disabled over 15 years old are in employment.

Moreover, the country has not yet had any college or university programmes for the disabled and some vocational training programmes in localities a small scale, which partly helped the disabled.

Young overseas Vietnamese learn mother tongue through tourism

The Ho Chi Minh City Association for Liaison with Overseas Vietnamese said that it will organise a tourism-cum-Vietnamese learning programme for young overseas Vietnamese from July 27 to August 10.

Under the programme, the participants will learn how to cook Vietnamese food and attend 10 extracurricular sessions on communication in Vietnamese at the Duc Ba Church, Thao Cam Vien Zoo and Can Gio tourism site.

They will visit central Binh Dinh province – the land of martial arts to see Tay Son traditional martial arts, visit the Emperor Quang Trung Museum and the Ham Ho tourism site and enjoy central highlands’ ethnic music.

Apart from these activities, the association will collaborate with the city’s Communist Youth Union to organise summer camps for them in Ho Chi Minh City, southeastern Dong Nai province and southern coastal Ba Ria-Vung Tau province from July 21-24.

At the events, they will offer incense to Hung Kings, present gifts to children with disabilities and meet with local youths. The overseas Vietnamese will also visit the Minh Long porcelain company and tour the mango garden tourism site in Dong Nai province.

VietNamNet/VNA