When preparing for her son’s first day at school, one mother weighed her first grader’s schoolbag. It weighed 2.7 kilos.

Implementing the 2009 work plan, the standing committee of Ha Nam provincial Women’s Union organized a training class on “improving knowledge on state management and women’s union work” for 232 women who are full time women’s union cadres and key cadres at local women’s unions of Ha Nam province from 28th July to 1st August 2009.

Suoi Da is a rural, large and populous commune of Duong Minh Chau district, Tay Ninh province. More than 90% of the households are doing agricultural works. The number of poor households is 511 (equivalent to 17% total households), among which, there are 122 poor female-headed households.

Under the framework of the project “Law and life club” (LARC II) to improve capacity of the women’s union, Bac Kan provincial Women’s Union organized a training course on skills of law communication and counseling for its staff and the staff of local justice organs. This project is funded by CARE International in Vietnam in collaboration with Bac Kan provincial Women’s Union and was implemented at Cho Moi and Na Ri districts from June 2007.

Recently, Quang Binh provincial Women’s Union organized a meeting to evaluate 5 year implementation of providing entrusted loans for poor households and beneficiaries of social policies and commence the work plan for the last 6 months of 2009.

In July 4th 2009, the VWU Presidium awarded the honour medal “For the development of Vietnamese women” – a noble prize of VWU to 3 German experts: Mr. Niclaus Bergman, Acting manager of Saving Banks Foundation for International Cooperation (SBFIC)/Sparkasee Essen Bank, Mr. Klaus Remmer, Manager of Sparkasee Essen’s Service Center, coordinator of the TYM project; & Mr. Joerg Teumer, TYM project’s consultants team leader, to recognize their contributions to promote and strengthen the cooperation and assistance towards the VWU in general and TYM Fund in particular in supporting poor women through credit & saving activities.

With the support of Vietnam Women’s Union, An Giang provincial Women’s Union organized a training course on anti-drug for advocators of An Giang Women’s Unions from 29th to 31st July 2009.

With the aim to help Son La Women’s Union to improve their staff capacity to implement the representative function of Son La Women’s Unions, Vietnam Women’s Union sent a mission to organize a training course for 78 women cadres from Son La provincial Women’s Union and 11 district women’s unions.

On 7th August 2009, Vietnam Women’s Union organized the Workshop “developing sub-projects”, under the framework of the project “ethical communication and education for Vietnamese women in the period of industrialization and modernization” which was developed by VWU and approved by the Prime Minister.

In the first 6 months of 2009, all levels of Hung Yen Provincial Women’s Union have used reputation as collateral to guaranty 60 billion VNDfrom Provincial Social Policy Bank to disburse loans to WU’s members raising the total VWU’s management capital to 388 billion VND for 49,967 borrowers.