Ha Giang – On October 8 – 9, 2012, in Quang Binh Commune, the Consultative Institute for Socio-Economic Development of Rural and Mountainous Areas (CISDOMA) organized the training course “Community communication skills” for the Executive Committee of Quang Binh Women’s Union and officers who were heads of Women with Law and Life Clubs. This was the next activity of the project Capacity building for Quang Binh Women’s Union (Ha Giang province) in legal communication and support for ethnic minority women sponsored by Justice Initiatives Facilitation Fund (JIFF/JPP).

Attending the training course were Chairwoman of Quang Binh Women’s Union, heads of 15 Women with Law and Life Clubs at 15 communes, and representatives of Justice Department and Women’s Union of Quang Binh district.

Pham Hanh Sam, M.A– former Director of Propaganda and Education Department of Vietnam Women’s Union and an expert in Gender and Communication, led the training course.

After the course, the participants were able to deepen their knowledge and skills in:
1. Communication/ Behavior Change Communication;
2. Communication channels and tools;
3. Basic forms of community communication;
4. Basic community communication skills;
5. Developing communication plans for Women with Law and Life Clubs.

The course used the following techniques: participatory training, group discussion, personal exercises, case study analysis, learning by doing, role-playing, and debate. With these methods, the trainees had opportunities to express themselves, making the lessons more diverse and suitable to the needs of the trainees.

Preliminary assessments of performance before and after training showed that the trainee’s understandings about communication, including purposes of general and legal communication, and the differences between channels, means and forms of communication, had observed remarkable improvement.

“Before the course, 85% of the trainees think the most important purpose of legal behavior change communication (LBCC) for ethnic minority women is to improve their knowledge, behaviors and skills in law implementation. At the end of the course, however, 89% of the trainees conclude that the most important purpose of this interactive process is to help ethnic minority women accept changes towards and maintain law-abiding behaviors”