CONTACT DETAILS
Name of institution: Research and Training Centre for Community Development
Key contact name Ms Tran Thi Thu Ha – Deputy Director / Host coordinator
Key contact tel. number (direct) +84 24.3628.0350
Key contact tel. number (other) +84 912 552 393
Email Address: ha.tran@rtccd.org.vn Hatran2004@gmail.com;
Address No 39, lane 255, Vong st, Dong Tam,
County/State/Province/Region Hai Ba Trung dist, Ha Noi
Country Vietnam
OVERVIEW
The Research and Training Centre for Community Development (RTCCD), established in 1998, is a local non-government organization. Since 2005, RTCCD become a think tank that conducts policy oriented research on health and provides an independent voice for advocating participatory community development in Vietnam.
Among the local NGOs in Vietnam, RTCCD is known as the leading organization in health policy-oriented research and innovative community-based intervention in the fields of community based mental health, early childhood development, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and social work. Its research and interventions are then documented and converted into policy brief for advocacy to amend national policies and guidelines and transformed into guidelines for other NGOs to scaling-up.
RTCCD currently is the chair organization of the NCD-Vn group, Evidence-based Health Policy Development. It manages a community Facebook group “Y te vi dan” (Health for People) where updated information on health promotion and education is posted. It also manages a Facebook community group on Learning Club on the first 1000 days to provide information to parents on pregnancy and early childhood care and development.
RTCCD operates one research/project office and one clinic – the Green Pine Clinic (GPC). It is the day-time counseling and assessment for early childhood development.
RTCCD has 28 full-time staff working at the project office (17 staff) and the clinic (11 staff). All 17 staff at the research-project office has good English skills. The organization always provides a team-work environment for volunteers, has a dynamic and friendly working environment and they are keen to learn and make changes.
Their website: http://www.rtccd.org.vn [1].
Program description:
You are going to support the project “Learning Clubs on the first 1000 days”.
Learning Clubs are a novel, evidence-informed, structured intervention addressing the major risks to early childhood health and development in the first 1000 days of life (pregnancy and until child 2 years old). In a joint project RTCCD Vietnam, Monash University, the University of Melbourne and the Burnet Institute in Australia, with the support of Vietnam’s Ministry of Health, developed Learning Clubs and are running a trial to evaluate the impact of this approach in a rural province in Vietnam. This innovation was developed from the evidence generated by the collaboration over the past 15 years about the psychological and general health of women during pregnancy and after giving birth, and the health and development of their young children.
The Learning Clubs intervention comprises 20 educational sessions, one a home visit and the others, facilitated group meetings. All content is drawn from interventions shown in randomized control trials in resource-constrained settings to be effective in addressing maternal nutrition, mental health, parenting capabilities, infant health and development, or gender-based violence and empowerment. Sessions are organized into five modules targeting perinatal stage-specific essential knowledge and skills. The educational package includes 3 family books, 5 facilitator handbooks, 50 video clips and 20 take-home-message posters. The project materials were developed by contracted with a media company (VTV) to design the books and to shot video clips. Men are invited to participate in sessions and facilitators are trained to include them in the learning activities and question and answer discussions. The importance to optimizing women’s health and infant health and development of men’s care is emphasized and the harms of family violence outlined.
The project includes two components. The randomized control trial component is funded by the NHMRC Australia, focusing on surveys, child assessment to generate evidence for policy advocacy. The business component is funded by the Grand Challenges Canada, focusing on measuring the economics of the trial, piloting the business to generate income for the model. It is expected that the model can financially sustained via selling the family books to families in Vietnam, organizing fee-based training courses to pregnant women and their families; and selling video via web-based membership site. It is expected the income from these efforts will support the team to develop further material for the age 3-5 years.
The local team so far are very confident with the trial component. The family books and video clips are well developed. However, we are confused with the business component and don’t know where to start.
We have sold about 300 books in March and April and gained good praise from both families and doctors. We have conducted 4 free training course in late 2018 – 2019 and more than 100 pregnant mothers and their partners attended each course and we received a lot of positive feedbacks from the participants. However when we posted the fee-based course, around 10 pregnant women signed in. We need your supports!
LOCATION
RTCCD is located in a 7-storey building. It is about 7 km away from the Hanoi central business district.
KEY FACT
In 2018, the organization has conducted the following activities:
- 7 research and projects
- 10 workshops with 998 participants
- 21 training course with 1083 attendants
Working hours: 8.00 – 17.00 Monday – Friday
28 full-time staff
PROGRAM MISSION
The program aims to develop a business plan to support the Learning Club on the first 1000 days to generate income for sustainability
PROGRAM GOALS AND TASK LISTS
Develop business plan
- Understand the Learning Clubs materials and feedbacks from participants
- Review efforts so far to analyze the reasons behind the success and failure
- Understand the local team’s intention for business
- Support to develop the written business plan
Pilot business component
- Operate the activity to boost the book sales and training courses
- Observe the activities to provide advice for adjustment.
- Support with developing key performance indicators for the business component
YOUR ROLES
- Provide advice to the local team about what needed to run a successful business model based on the provided materials: human resource, financial resource, material quality improvement?
- Develop business plan to help the local team understand what to do.
- Develop key indicators to measure the success of the business implementation and route map for the pilot.
TYPICAL DAYS
- The office operates from 8.00 – 17.00 from Monday – Friday. The volunteer can work from 9:00 am to 16:00 pm to avoid the traffic jams.
- The volunteer will work with the local team includes 1 project coordinator and 1 project officer to have full understand about the project and business dream. Team work and discussion is encouraged to support the volunteer’s work.
- The volunteer will have the free lunch with staff (the organization has a very good cook with diversified local food) from 12.00 – 13.30. It is the time where cultural values can be exchanged. If you like drinking water during meal, feel free to bring the water with you to the lunch room.
- From 13.30 – 14.00 the volunteer can join the Mindfulness session (sitting on Himalaya salt stone and practice meditation) or sometimes can go out with young staff for coffee.
- The local staff sometimes have outdoor activities and they often invite volunteer to join with them. It is a dynamic and friendly working environment.
The volunteer is encouraged to have the weekend off to explore Hanoi and Vietnam.
DRESS CODE
Dress as your wish. It is a friendly working environment
PROJECT STRUCTURE
One the first day, there will be the welcome meeting where the project coordinator and the project officer will meet you, give you overview of project and show you the materials. A work plan will be finalized with detailed activities.
From the next days, you and the team will work closely. You will be in the same working room with the project team to enable discussions. If possible please bring the laptop with you for your convenient. The office IT will help your laptop linked with the joint printer and internet.
The project team will take you to visit places where the team is working with to sell the books or promote the training courses. We will arrange so that you will meet with the partners to discuss ways to improve the collaboration and business outputs.
Once the business plan is completed and agreed by the local team and the volunteer, resource will be arranged to pilot activities immediately and you will have chance to see the results.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
You might ask for your support to proofread some documents in English if you are native speaker.