A nobel medal for President of Marie Schlei Association

Ms Christa Randzio-Plath has worked with VWU since 1999 o­n many development projects for poor Vietnamese women. The MS Association aims to boost mutual understanding and unity between German and developing countries' women. Headed by Randzio-Plath, the MS Association actively mobilizes funds from the whole society, social welfare funds and the Governmental fund for international development. It uses this money to assist women in developing countries, primarily in education. The target of these activities is to help disad­vantaged women increase their knowledge and skills in poverty clearance.

During her cooperation with VWU, Ms Christa Randzio-Plath persuaded the M.S Association to finance 4 projects for provin­cial women's unions. After the first project successfully sup­ported poor women in Son La province to produce and market Soya curd in 2000, Ms Randzio Plath and the M.S Association decided to fund a total of US$ 78,200 through VWU to help 450 poor women at 3 other projects in Lai Chau (to generate income by cultivating gardens, ponds, forests as well as animal hus­bandry), Hai Phong (to support planting flowers at traditionalflower - marking villages), and Hung Yen(to produce and market mushrooms).

Though small - scale, these projects have successfully met the needs of poor women in the selected provinces. So far, Ms Christa Randizo-Plath has made an important contribution to raising the living standards of poor women as well as attracting them to participate into VWU’s activities.