Action for the City Activity Updates for ABC Sub-group June 6, 2011 Action Center for City Development Action for the City Activity Updates for ABC Sub-group June 6, 2011

Overview Neighborhood Empowerment in Hanoi (Green Living in Community) Partnership on Community Action for CC (Green Living at Schools)

Neighborhood Empowerment in Hanoi Has finished after 2 years of project Preparing for a coach training course in HCMC (June 16-18) and Danang (June 20-22) for scaling-up Working with experts to edit materials for its release at the end of June Finalizing coaches’ guidance instruction based on community’s and AfC officers’ feedbacks

Partnership on Community Action for CC Has finished the Adaptation period in May ~ 220 students in two schools coached about 6 topics Collecting feedbacks from teachers and AfC officers for the first editing of the student workbook & teacher guidance Preparing for a training course in Hue (Jul 4-8) to enhance teacher’s capacity, review edited materials, & draw a plan for the next school year

How has AfC applied the Spiral Model in its Adaption period? Information Action Care Help formulate intention Help formulate questions Give feedbacks

Relating the overall picture with specific situation in Hanoi Care Getting students to care about a certain topic by provoking their thoughts on its significance through open discussions Ex: the vitality of water in life, the scenario of a life without energy… Providing alarming stats to raise/verify the need for individual care and actions through a short reading Relating the overall picture with specific situation in Hanoi Ex: the pollution of To Lich river, water cut-off in Hanoi in the summer….

Help formulate questions Asking students to reflect on the status quo & to come up with solutions relevant to their own situations Posing as many questions as possible for students so that questions are answered by another thought-provoking question (Socratic questioning)

Suggesting simple ways of taking actions Information Providing brief information about the necessity of a certain topic through a short reading Suggesting simple ways of taking actions Ex: use showerhead instead of bathtub to save 57% of the water used Getting students to exchange their own knowledge together

Help formulate intention Workbook are designed in how-to-do-it format (necessary resources – necessary time – procedure – saved resources) encourage action taking Students keep a detailed personal diary with specific days for each step to take. Their group also have a team diary to keep track of individual actions.

Action Students taking action with parent’s support during intervals between weekly lessons

do audits and measurements as a way to reflect on what they’ve done Give feedbacks Students do audits and measurements as a way to reflect on what they’ve done discuss changes in their lifestyles, share experiences & new ideas on how to solve problems have their commitment/care strengthened Care

Striking features All components of the Spiral are interwoven. Ex: While discussing with students ways to take action (INFORMATION), we’re encouraging their care (CARE) and also help them formulate right questions (HELP FORMULATE QUESTIONS) Coaches and lessons are empowering (no imposing of a fixed idea, listening rather than preaching, questioning rather than giving answers..)  put students and coaches on an equal footing in the quest of the most effective solutions Students are individually catered (no competition among students, every progress is recognized, suggested actions are chosen based on their relevance to students’ situation)

Project is on good track to catch up with successes achieved by its preceding counterpart in other countries