A project financed by the Asia Development Bank (ADB) has helped improve health and nutrition for under-3-year-old children of ethnic minorities and poor migrant workers in central Quang Binh and Quang Tri provinces and southern Binh Duong province. The Community-based Early Childhood Care and Development project has been carried out by the General Office of Population and Family Planning under the Health Ministry since 2008. At a recent workshop to review its outcomes, Director of the project Tran Van Chien said that the rate of malnourished undersized children in the target localities has dropped from 30.3% to 17.5%. The proportion of those who are underweight has been reduced from 43.3% to 31.8%. After five years, the project has upgraded 32 day-care facilities for children in 10 communes with a high concentration of migrant workers and 85 nursery schools in 26 ethnic communes, and equipped them with educational toys. It has also added nutrition supplementation, breastfeeding and reproductive healthcare activities to the malnutrition prevention program, as well as working to enhance childcare and education awareness among local authorities and the community. ADB said that authorized agencies can learn from this project to build childcare and development strategies, and to improve care for ethnic minority children. (vov.vn Sept 28)
