Nghe An Women: Many innovations towards the community

Confidence in economic development

For the past 2 years, farmers of THQ Agricultural Services Joint Stock Cooperative located in Vinh Tien hamlet, Dien Phong commune (Dien Chau) have become partners of Ms. Ho Thi Hop - owner of Lim - Farm & Food production and business facility. Their products are vegetables produced according to VietGAP safety processes such as spinach, moringa, jute, pumpkin, celery and grown entirely according to orders. On average, several times a month, the farmers' goods will be shipped to Vinh and then freeze-dried and processed into vegetables, tubers and herbs to serve as weaning meals for children, the elderly and drinks.

Producing vegetable, root and fruit powder from agricultural products of Nghe An. Photo: MH

Ms. Ho Thi Hop grew up in Tri Le commune (Que Phong), graduated from primary education and used to teach. Later, due to family circumstances, she got married and moved to Vinh, so she had to change jobs. Before starting a business with a factory producing powdered vegetables and fruits, Ms. Hop also went through many different jobs, but until now she believes that she has a "fate" with farmers and is satisfied with her current job. "My family is originally from Quynh Thuan commune, Quynh Luu district, a traditional vegetable growing area. More than 2 years ago, I returned to my hometown, right at the time of "good harvest, low price" and dozens of hectares of vegetables had to be sold cheaply or thrown away because they could not be consumed. At that time, I just wanted to have a technology to process vegetables into useful products that could be easily used. Through research on the internet and consumer demand, I invested nearly 1 billion VND to develop the production of cold-dried powdered vegetables and fruits to help farmers find outlets for vegetables and tubers in Nghe An", Ms. Hop shared.

Although it has only been in operation for over 2 years, through many different marketing channels, Ms. Hop's products have been increasingly affirmed in the market with a consumption of over 5,000 boxes/month. From this facility, she also sells dozens of tons of vegetables to farmers in Quynh Luu and Dien Chau districts each month and creates regular jobs for dozens of workers, mainly women, with a fairly stable income.

Nghe An's agricultural products are used to process goods. Photo: MH

At the age of only 30, Ms. Tran Thi Thu Hang in Nghi My commune (Nghi Loc) is already the owner of a nutrition production facility with 72 agents and over 500 collaborators, sales staff and an income of hundreds of millions of VND/month. 6 years ago, when she started this job, she did not think much about the results like today because at that time she simply wanted to have a nutritional product that was safe for consumers, especially those with malnourished children. From her own actual needs, she gradually researched and produced on a small scale, mainly to serve her family and acquaintances. Later, the product became more and more popular, she boldly expanded production with a processing workshop of more than 200m2 and dozens of regular workers.

Sharing about her work, Ms. Hang added: “For a long time, the source of agricultural products from her hometown has been abundant but the output has not been stable. In addition, epidemics and the problem of good harvest but low prices have occurred continuously, causing farmers to abandon their fields and land more and more. Personally, when switching to producing and trading this nutritional product, I want to take advantage of that agricultural source to process many products and become a place to consume agricultural products stably for people. Currently, the project has contributed to creating jobs for hundreds of local workers, including on-site production workers, auxiliary workers (transportation, loading and unloading), workers in raw material supply activities and workers distributing products to bring products to market. The product also contributes to local farmers, areas that cooperate in purchasing raw materials with the company to have a stable source of income on their own land.”

Startup model of members of Nghi Loc District Women's Union. Photo: MH

Two projects by Ms. Ho Thi Hop and Tran Thi Thu Hang have just entered the top 10 of the contest."Innovative and creative startups"organized by the Provincial People's Committee and highly appreciated, especially in the application of electronic trading floors to promote product consumption. Ms. Le Thi Thanh Hai - Head of the Department of Supporting Women in Economic Development, Provincial Women's Union said: "The women's start-up movement has been responded to by women throughout the province in recent years and thereby created livelihoods and jobs for thousands of members at the grassroots level. In the past 5 years, from the movementwomen entrepreneursattracted 1,946 ideas, including 186 ideas participating in provincial and central competitions. The association also received and supported 1,355 startup and business ideas.

Join hands for the community

Not only taking care of economic development, women are also pioneers, leading local movements with many practical and meaningful activities. In Thanh Chuong district, recently, the model of "Turning scrap into breeding animals" has been implemented by the branches with many effective activities. In Thanh Chuong town, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh - a member of Branch 6A has difficult circumstances, is a poor household and is also a single mother with a small child. Joy came to her when, on the occasion of Vietnamese Women's Day, she received donations of scrap from the sisters in the branch to buy her 2 breeding pigs for her to raise and develop the economy. From scrap money, the sisters in the town used it to build flower roads, share meals in quarantine areas or convert it into instant noodles, rice vermicelli, fish sauce, cooking oil, and vegetables of all kinds for many members in difficulty during the epidemic season. In Hanh Lam commune, knowing the circumstances of Ms. Gian Thi Hue and Ms. Gian Thi Hoa who were born with hearing disabilities, the association transferred and guided the process of growing clean mushrooms so that they would have a "fishing rod" to take care of their families.

Thanh Chuong district women support livelihoods for members in difficult circumstances. Photo: MH

Nghi Loc District Women's Union visited and gave gifts to adopted children supported by the association. Photo: MH

Effective and meaningful activities towards the grassroots and female members are also the new direction of all levels.Nghe An Women's Unionso that programs are increasingly practical, specific, suitable for each subject, locality, region, and area, meeting practical needs.

“Improving the quality of organization and activities of grassroots associations, diversifying forms of gathering women, promoting the ownership of members and women” is one of the breakthroughs of the Nghe An Women’s Union in recent years. To do this well, we have focused on improving the quality of grassroots association activities; promoting the role of core members, effectively implementing the work of developing and managing members in the new situation; focusing on building a model of gathering women by age, interests, profession, ethnicity, and religion. Since then, it has helped the association movement to develop more and more strongly, gathering a large number of members to participate and achieving many positive results in terms of economic development, hunger eradication, poverty reduction and improving the cultural and spiritual life of members at all levels”.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Quynh Hoa - President of the Provincial Women's Union.