A job fair for the disabled will be held in Hanoi on Dec. 2 with funding provided by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
The event is expected to help people with disabilities find suitable jobs and increase public awareness of the benefit of employing disabled workers.
As many as 50 businesses, vocational training establishments for disabled people, and job placement centres have registered to take part in the fair.
As part of the USAID-funded programme, a similar event will take place in Ho Chi Minh City from Nov. 23-24.
The Viet Nam Social Science Institute and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) organised a workshop on human development in Hanoi on November 22.
The 2006 human development report placed Vietnam 107th among the target 177 countries. The country ranked 56th in terms of literacy rate, 83rd in terms of average life expectancy, and 118th in terms of income.
Jonathan Pincus, UNDP senior country economist suggested Viet Nam include climate change in its research for the 2010 human development report as this is one of the world’s hottest issues for which a national vision is needed.
According to UNDP human development expert Joanne Doyle, Vietnam should improve the quality of its human development research through building capacity for researchers; establishing a governmental programme on human development research and raising policy makers’ awareness on human development research.
The steel group Posco from the Republic of Korea granted 40 scholarships worth 20,000 USD in total to Vietnamese students in Hanoi on November 22.
Choi Kwang Woong, Deputy Director of the Posco TJ Park Scholarship Fund, said Vietnam is emerging as a centre of Asia with the highest economic growth rate in the region.
Previously, the Fund awarded 35 scholarships, worth 17,500 USD in total, to students in Ho Chi Minh City on November 21.
Apart from its scholarship initiative, the Fund is providing financial aid for 12 Vietnamese students to pursue higher education courses in the RoK.
From 2006, the Fund annually provides two Vietnamese scholars with 15,000 USD each to carry out research on social issues.
Posco currently has two steel plants operating in Vietnam and is investing in building a large-scale cold rolled steel plant in the country.
On the same day, Partage, a French non-governmental organisation, presented 500 scholarships, worth a total 750 million VND (46,000 USD), to students in central Thua Thien-Hue Province.
The figure brings the total number of scholarships granted by the organisation for disadvantaged students in the province to more than 3,000 over the past seven years.
Recent floods have caused an estimated loss of 28.7 billion VND for the education sector of Thua Thien-Hue.
A get-together marking the 83 rd founding anniversary of the Cao Dai religion was held at the Sai Gon Thanh That (Sai Gon Temple) in Ho Chi Minh City on November 22.
At the event, the representative board of the Tay Ninh Cao Dai religious sect in HCM City reviewed their activities over the past one year.
Professor Thuong Minh Thanh, head of the board, said that Cao Dai followers’ activities have received local authorities and people’s warm support as they go in line with the religion’s teachings and national laws.
Last year, the representative board of the Tay Ninh Cao Dai religious sect in HCM City organised 12 training classes for 1,024 dignitaries, lay workers and followers. Caodaists in the city also contributed more than 7 billion VND to humanitarian and relief activities.
The Japanese Government will provide over 338,000 USD in non-refundable aid to upgrade transport and education infrastructure in some disadvantaged communes in Vietnam.
Documents to this effect were signed in Hanoi on November 22 between Japanese Charge d’ Affaires to Viet Nam Daisuke Matsunaga and representatives from beneficiary Central Highlands provinces of Kon Tum and Gia Lai and northern provinces of Ha Nam and Ha Tay.
The donation will help build roads for Dak Ha Commune in Kon Tum Province and Nam Phong Commune in Ha Tay Province, and primary schools for Hoa Hau Commune in Ha Nam Province and Chu Prong District in Gia Lai Province.
The Mekong delta province of Ben Tre is among nine provinces that have been selected for a project to finalise and modernise the land management system using the World Bank’s loan.
Besides its own capital of more than 2.4 million USD, Ben Tre has been allocated 6.8 million USD to implement the five-year project which aims to develop a modern and complete land management system and help citizens access its service.
Under the project, which will commence in July 2008 and finish in June 2013 and be divided in two phases, the Land Survey Technology Centre under the provincial Natural Resources and Environment Department will make new land registration procedures for 96 communes, correct and edit for the remaining 64 communes’ procedures and grant around 1.3 million land use right certificates to units across the province.
(Source: VNA) | 
