Good morning Vietnam!
October 25th, 2010
I’m off to Vietnam this week. I’ll be doing some volunteer work for a Dutch based NGO and probably also drinking some Bia hoi. I’m not helping build a school (and if I did it would fall over in a week), but I am helping bring more tourists into the relatively untouched Northern Highlands. I’ll be visiting Lao Cai and Son La province (and some other places that I can’t remember), then I have to come up with creative concepts (this is where my advertising background comes in) for a logo and tagline for the Northern Highlands and three provinces. Should be great fun and so interesting to be involved help build an ‘integrated brand strategy’. I’ve got a few days travelling around the region then a few days in Hanoi working in a design studio. It also feels nice to give something back when I make a ‘living’ from visiting these places and writing about them.
The NGO I’m doing the work for is SNV, which is a non-profit organisation established in the Netherlands in 1965. They have been on the ground in developing countries for over 40 years, and now operate in 35 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Balkans. SNV has 900 advisors in the field who come from a variety of cultural and technical backgrounds. So what do they do? I’ll let them explain:
Our aim is to alleviate poverty by enabling those on the lowest incomes to be part of social and economic networks and so increase their income and employment opportunities. More than half of our work focuses on economic and private sector development. Alongside this, we contribute to improving people’s access to basic services like water and sanitation, energy and education. We achieve both by strengthening local organisations.
They are also heavily involved in helping developing nations promote and build tourism. Again, they explain it a lot better than me:
According to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), tourism is the primary source of earnings for 49 of the world’s least developed countries. SNV works in the field of sustainable tourism, as it can make a considerable difference in alleviating poverty. SNV focuses on all aspects of sustainability: economic, environmental, cultural, and institutional (good governance). SNV is currently promoting pro-poor sustainable tourism in 23 countries. SNV helps to create jobs for the local communities by supporting:
-enterprise development, such as product innovation and promotion;
-improving services such as accommodation and restaurants;
-protecting cultural assets, highlighting local events, and improving the production of souvenirs and handicrafts.
We also build capacities to empower local people and their communities to make their destinations more competitive.
I probably won’t get a chance to blog while I’m away, but I’ll fill you in about all the Pho I’ll eat on my return.