grandchildren. Neither her husband no she want to have more children but they are not practicing any modern contraception techniques. They just rely on
traditional methods. She said that if she gets pregnant, she will give birth and bring the child up. Female group discussion, Section 4, Nh
ơn Bình Ward 7.1.9 Capacity and Vulnerability
- Health centre staff and section health network, together with health facilities with both western and traditional medicine functions are good basis for taking care of
the health of the local people. The experiences of the staff and health villagers network in dealing with diseases related to natural disasters are valuable.
- There are constraints such as limited understanding on climate change related diseases in the future, and limited programmes targeted children and women, as
well as elderly people in the area. - Unpredictable weather changes have an impact on people’s health: when it gets
hotter, many sicknesses happen: high blood pressure, cold and fever, headache, dizziness and sore eyes. When there is a lot of rain, many mosquitoes are bred
causing dengue fever and cholera due to the contaminated water source. - Poor health and high percentage of women suffering from gynecology, poor
reproductive health and malnourished children are considered as vulnerable to reduce their resilience to climate change.
- Local people especially the poor women do not pay high attention to nutrition and their health care, due to poverty, lack of information, limited access to
services.
7.2 Education
Most of the local population in the commune and sections have a general low education level, with primary, and secondary education. There are still some people
with no literacy. Data from households survey illustrates the point.
In section 9, there are around 300 young people from those households who used to go fishing and raising aquaculture. The young people do not have high level of
education, it is so difficult for them now to change into other jobs.
7.2.1 Formal education
Formal educational facilities in the ward include one secondary school with 32 classes from grade 6 to grade 9, 2 primary schools with the total of 665 children and
24 teachers. School and class infrastructure and facilities are reasonably equipped.
However, there are quite a few classrooms, which are degraded, and their roofs are still being thrown away during storms. The school yards are of earthern made, and
lower than the road, resulting in more inundation during the floods in the schools. There is also lack of latrines in schools, for example, in the secondary school, there
are 1,376 pupils, who are sharing only 6 latrines for boys and girls, and 70 teachers sharing one latrine. According to the teachers, the lack of latrines can affect badly the
health for the children and teachers during normal time, during storms and floods as well as drought or rainy days. Bad smell, and poor sanitation occur especially during
the rainy season.
In Quy Nhon, Department of Education and Traininng has directed the integration of some knowledge of disasters management and environment sanitation into some
subjects such as Geography or in extra curriculum in secondary schools, depending
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on the financial support of the schools and the parents. However, in Nhan Binh secondary schools, this work has been not been done intensively, due to the lack of
financial support from parents.
Children do not understand much about climate change, and do not participate in any disaster preparedness activities in the schools or communities, or any safety
programme especially in the rainy season, although their teachers and parents do often warn them to avoid dangerous traveling during floods.
Historical profile exercise together with group discussions with children, and teachers in the schools in the ward also show that most common disasters such as storms,
and floods in the areas have caused death of the children during difficult and unsafe travelling between homes and school, more housework for the children at home to
help their parents during storms and floods, as well as disruption of their learning and extra learning to compensate for their lessons.
Children also cite their difficulties in daily life during floods at home, such as “Before the floods come we help parents to move things to higher places of our houses and if
any family that has grandparents, we have to send them to live temporarily in safer houses of neighbours”.
“During the floods, because our houses are in low level, water overflows the floor so we have to use boat for moving around and cooking meals. Small children have to sit
on higher ground in the house to be safe. Only when it is rainy and floods come to cause road erosion, it is difficult for us to go to school. Some areas where there is
still floodwater, some children have to go to school with parents on boats. Back to school, we and our teachers clean and tidy up classrooms and school so that we can
resume our schooling”.
According to the children, during the floods, the school asks them to stay at home from 4 to 7 days depending on the seriousness of floods and the children have to
take compensation classes on Saturday and Sunday.
For the teachers, although they do not understand much about climate change, but they do realize the changes in the natural disasters, and there is no more regularity in
the seasons. This also affects their planning of the lessons, to ensure the quality of the teaching during the rainy season.
Case of Mr. Le Van Luu, Headmaster of the Primary School in Nhan Binh ward can illustrate this point.
Mr Le Van Luu is the headmaster of the Nhan Binh Ward Primary School. He says that serious floods in the area cause environmental pollution. Storms and
floods also affect travel, study, and living conditions of the teachers and pupils, especially for those schools in lowland areas where pupils have to get through
strong currents and have to pass overflowing dykes or dams. “During the storm or flood, the school has to close, teachers and pupils stay at
home. When there is a serious storm or flood, pupils an stay at home for 5 to 7 days according to school regulations. After that, they start to fall behind in the
curriculum. In the past, storms and floods happened with certain regularity. But now.. we can’t prepare in time. Perhaps if we begin teaching one or two
weeks earlier than before, this would give us more time and flexibility.” The school can use local radio and television and newspapers to inform
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parents about when children should stay at home. Also after storms and floods, local health workers spray disinfectant to prevent infection and disease.
The school now also includes lessons about environment and sanitation in its local curriculum, in relation to the situation during storms and floods. The
headmaster suggests there should be more discussion on disaster mitigation and environmental protection and tree-planting, among pupils and teachers
and parents.
7.2.2 Informal educational channels in the ward and in two sections There is a centre for vocational training and community training at the ward.
Interviews with mass organizations show that the some classes for women and local farmers are also organized. Topics include adolescent reproductive health, family
planning communicationtraining, some extension classes for local farmers.
However, due to the limited budget for training and limited staff, the number of training for the local communities remains very limited.
In-depth interviews with local people in the two sections show that some local people learn or get information from each other in their neighbourhoods, and through their
family network. 7.2.3 Capacity and Vulnerability
Some basic infrastructure of the formal education for the children, number and experiences of school teachers, and their readiness and experiences in integrating
environment protection and disasters warnings to the children through lessons are considered the capacity to deal with climate change.
Local informal education channel facility in place, and neighbourhoods and family networks to learn, and to share information are good means to help the local people
dealing with disasters and climate change. Key vulnerable factors include: Lack of other basic facilities in schools such as strong
classrooms and hygienic latrines, limited understanding of children and teachers on climate change, low level of awareness of their own safety during the natural
disasters, no voice or participation into the disaster preparedness programmes in schools as well as in communities, and their poor family conditions.
High unemployment of young people due to low education level and no skills makes these group more vulnerable to low incomes, harder to deal with disasters and
climate change.
7.3 Drainage system, water supply, sanitation and environment
