The Japanese government will provide over US$447,600 for a project to improve nutrition for children and ensure food security for the poorest residents in the northern province of Yen Bai.

The funding will be made under a non-refundable aid contract signed by the Japanese Embassy and related parties in Hanoi on March 5. The project is an initiative set up by the Japanese government and the Japanese non-governmental charity Save the Children Japan. The charity will channel the funding into activities intended to supply health and nutrition knowledge to mothers and pregnant women in the province. The project aims to bridge the rich-poor gap that is increasingly yawning between urban areas and regions where ethnic minority groups are living.  

Such a gap is clearly seen in Yen Bai, one of the poorest provinces in the country. Currently, 20 percent of children in the locality’s rural areas suffer from malnutrition, 3 percent higher than the country’s average. In addition, the rate of provincial underdeveloped children is 33 percent while the national average ratio is 19 percent. Since the fiscal year 2012, Save the Children Japan has effectively used other non-refundable aid packages from the Japanese government for various activities that have helped enhance public awareness of health and nutrition, increase cash income, and provide techniques and knowledge of agricultural production in Yen Bai’s rural Van Chan District. Now with the new aid, the non-governmental charity will continue supporting people in Van Chan, where the number of poor households is the highest in the province. Save the Children Japan will work with the provincial Departments of Health, and Agriculture and Rural Development to multiply a good household nutritious vegetable garden model, provide small-scale credit for locals, give training in capital management and accounting to women, ensure food safety through boosting the effective use of natural resources, and many other activities.  

Save the Children Japan is committed to the fields of children’s educational development, child care and protection, and disaster prevention and control all over the world. In Vietnam, the charitable organization has held many activities to improve children’s nutrition as well as prevent and mitigate natural disasters.