VeT Project Management Training

The following is an article I wrote about VeT's Project Management Training in December. I've added some of my personal notes at the bottom.

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Cat Lai Ward, District 2, Ho Chi Minh City


Project Management Training

December 2-4, 2009

Beginning on December 2 and ending on December 4, 2009, VeT, in partnership with the Cat Lai People’s Committee, held a community training on project management for selected members of the Cat Lai People’s Committee’s Poverty Reduction Committee, Women’s Union and Youth Union. This training marked the beginning of the end of a successful partnership in Cat Lai between VeT and the District 2 People’s Committee, the Cat Lai People’s Committee and the Cat Lai Women’s Union in which VeT coordinated with the community to provide much needed infrastructure improvements and micro-credit programs for some of the area’s lowest-income households.

Throughout the three-day training, 19 members of the three groups participated in various discussions, group exercises, case studies and role plays as part of a comprehensive training provided by the Center for Social Work and Community Development Research and Consultancy. Over the course of the three days, group members learned about project structure, successful project management, resource management, and the importance of teamwork, planning, oversight, evaluation and the involvement of project beneficiaries in each stage of the project.

The training marked the end of a project which spanned over six years and two phases, during which time two residential alleys were upgraded and 162 low-income households received micro-loans to use towards income generating projects. Due to the success of the micro-credit project, the people of Cat Lai Ward have chosen to extend the fund beyond the length of the joint project with VeT and requested this week’s training and another on Micro-Credit in January, to prepare them to take over the management and oversight of the micro-credit program.

Training participants worked together to draft plans in the areas of micro-credit, vocational training and economic capacity building for low-income families and were able to edit and revise these plans based on the new strategies that they learned throughout the training. Many participants stated that they had never made a plan before or thought about project management and found the training to be very interesting and useful for their future needs.

In January, Vet and the Center for Social Work and Community Development Research and Consultancy will return to Cat Lai to provide a final training on Micro-Credit and to official close the project in the Cat Lai Ward.

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I attended this training for two days in December and was really surprised at how similar it was to other training's that I have attended in the US. It started off with a warm up/getting-to-know-you exercise and was filled with brainstorming, group activities and group presentations. The trainers were really impressive, asking more questions than providing information the first few days to ascertain what the participants already knew and then the next day was more information provision and the utilization of that information in small groups where the group members simulated real projects. It was all in Vietnamese, but with all of the activities and a bit of translation from my co-worker, I was able to follow along more or less with what was going on.


What wasn't at all like my previous training experiences in the US was our lunch break. One of the women in the training, Mrs. Hoa, had invited my co-worker and I and the two trainers to her house after lunch. Mrs. Hoa, like many Vietnamese, runs a business out of the front of her house, her specialty being coffees and teas. We all joined her on the patio for some Vietnamese ice tea and the women all began to chat in Vietnamese, as Mrs. Hoa doesn't speak any English. After a few moments, Mrs. Hoa gestured to me and motioned inside the front from of her house. The other ladies explained that she was offering for me to take a rest on the hammock in her front room. Thinking that I would feel a bit awkward lying in her house in a hammock while the other ladies all chatted outside, I politely refused, but she insisted. Finally not wanting to be rude, I made my way inside leaving my shoes at the door and was pleased to see all the other ladies right behind me.

We all entered the front room and the women began unrolling mats onto the floor and lying down. I had forgotten about the Vietnamese custom of napping after lunch. While they all made themselves comfortable on the floor and began chatting and laughing creating a scene much like a middle school sleepover, I - feeling slightly bad for being in the hammock and not on the floor - made myself comfortable and was soon asleep, but not before I imagined professional trainers in the US kicking off their shoes and spreading out mats on the floor for a long afternoon nap.