Vietnam CASE STUDY: Step up to lead the future
Truc, 17, from Ray ethnic minority group, is one of 500 students of Bao Thang Boarding High School for Ethnic Minorities, where 90% of her peers are from ethnic minority groups. “They live and study at school for about 28 days per month and only be back with their parents once a month”, shared from Ms. Lan, school’s vice principal.
For children at 10-18 age group like Truc and her peers in Bao Thang district, Lao Cai province, one of their unmet needs is Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) knowledge and healthy SRH practices. Honest and open discussions regarding this subject hardly happen due to cultural taboos. With inadequate knowledge, skills and local custom, many ethnic minority adolescents experience challenging puberty when physical and psychological changes happen; child marriage is still prevalent and, in many cases, those female adolescents become mothers at a young age. The SRH services are not child friendly and accessible, there are almost no cases of minors and young people aged 15-24 come to use the services, except for antenatal care and childbirth (Mid-term evaluation report, SC, 2019). Truc and her friends rarely had chance to learn about, to talk to or support each other on this topic. There were some educational sessions conducted in her school, however, majority of them were passive receivers. Truc has been engaging in some activities but often being led by teachers and other adults.
SHIFT is a campaign accelerator designed by Save the Children that supports young activists (aged 15- 25 years) to design and deliver public campaigns for social or environmental change. The SHIFT initiative in Lao Cai province was implemented with the leading role of Truc and other 7 youths – the SHIFTers of Bao Thang Boarding High School in 2022. In seven months, the SHIFTers were capacitated with trainings on youth leadership, how to form and work in team, planning and communication skills and then provided with tools and technical supports needed from Save the Children to practices their skills on how to lead the behaviour change communication campaign by themselves and influencing the movement. The communication campaign on Adolescent Reproductive Health which was then designed and run by Truc and her team mates which resulted in the active engagements and positive changes for youth and society through various forms such as SHIFT talk, Connection and Share festival and a Running race to enhance the awareness and confidence of the children and youth to talk about and seeking for support on adolescent reproductive health. The SHIFT campaign had brought into this remoted area an excited movement and got attention of 1,450 students and 50 volunteers participating not only in Truc’s school but also reached to nearby schools in the areas. The public mobilization was also promoted and got attention from young people, teachers, parents and community through a Facebook page which was effectively utilized with nearly 3,000 reaches within a very shorttimeframe. The campaign also has the strong commitment and buy-in from local authorities. Seeing how the SHIFTers run the campaign, the school principal decided to allocate further resources for establishment of communication club to scale up the model and create the platform for the students to voice up their needs and be the leading part of the solutions.
Youth leadership, gender sensitivity and confidence are the most visible achievement that SHIFT campaign brought into each youth, especially SHIFTers like Truc. They have earned the leadership skills and confidence through teamwork, expressing their opinions, working on their ideas, communicating it to others and especially having space to practice it within their own groups and reaching out to broader communities. From a timid and shy girl when talking about her own problems, Truc now becomes an active, dynamic and innovative youth, who could step up for leading role, talking about sensitive topics with adequate knowledge and confidence. She not only improves her own capacity but also contributes to making positive changes for ethnic minority children who are in boarding schools in regard of RSH, so that they can live and develop in a safer and healthier way.
Truc* in her own words:
“I used to think my day revolving… I used to be confused on where to start... I used to feel hesitant when speaking out… But SHIFT program came, entrusted us, and gave us many opportunities to discover ourselves”.
“I used to feel hesitant when talking about my problems but now I feel confident, open to talk to our peers about this sensitive topic. I’m happy that more and more friends of mine are open to share their problems and seeking for supports”.
“I, a student coming from Ray ethnic group, now know how to work as a team and build the communication plan for a big event”.
“We now know how to best engage students and young people in an active, youth friendly communication campaign which is very different from the traditional, boring communication session in schools before”.
“Not only having more knowledge, when I joined Shift, I have gained a lot of skills, from teamwork skills to planning skills and working with others...”.
“I improved my leadership skills a lot. Now I know how to divide tasks among team members based on the strengths and personalities of each member. I understand those tasks can also be flexible among the members, everyone is allowed to try things they have never done before so that they can have experiences that may discover their unexpected abilities”.
“When being a "leader", you also need to have an overall view covering all the group's activities from the preparation stages to the implementation.”
“When taking on this role, I realize that a leader has to face with a lot of pressures and difficulties that not everyone understands, but with a positive energy and enthusiasm, these problems can be solved, and it could not stop us from stepping up”.
