In recent years, being supported and inspired by a number of significant programmes such as The Vietnam Anti–Corruption Initiative (VACI) co-organised by Vietnam General Inspectorate and World Bank, youth have been leading projects aiming to promote values of integrity, honesty and transparency in their society.
While collecting information for the Youth Integrity Survey in Vietnam 2014 and through our collaboration with youth in various youth-focused activities, TT has been impressed with their capacity of leading and organising projects on such a challenging topic as integrity. In this article, TT will introduce a series of remarkable integrity projects initiated and carried out by youths.
FACE Club – For A Clean Education
Established in 2010, FACE Club of Hoa Sen University has set one pioneering model in promoting and safeguarding integrity in university environment. The name “FACE ” stands for “For A Clean Education”, and FACE’s missions are promoting academic integrity and supporting the university’s board to improve integrity in management.
FACE plans to build a network of clubs with the motto “for a clean education” in several universities. FACE commits to taking concrete actions that encourage values of integrity, accountability and transparency in education environment in Vietnam.
Initiated by Hoa Sen University and VID Ben Tre, FACE has received technical support TT from the beginning.
“Black or White, which do you choose?”
“Black or White” was formed within the framework of the Be Change Agents (BCA) programme by a group of talented students who are interested in transparency and true life values. Implemented by Live&Learn, the objective of Be Change Agents project is to “promote the role of active citizen” with funding from Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (from 2011 to 2013) and The United State Embassy (in 2014). One of BCA’s most remarkable initiatives named “I am honest, so are you” is under the project P38, which was one of nineteen initiatives awarded the VACI 2014.
Todocabi – a shortened name for the phrase “Do you know?” – is a youth-led campaign on transparency of state budget.
Todocabi advocates for a written recommendation that is: “State Bugdet allocation should be published at all levels before approval”, submitted to the National Assembly meeting in June 2015.
Todocabi holds the perspective that “Citizens are taxpayers. We have the right to know how the tax budget is spent. We have the right to know the truth rather than ‘half of the truth’ on State Budget as we do now.”
A social media youth group named Ếch Phu Hồ (Building frogs) implements the Todocabi campaign focusing on: (1) Producing products illustrating knowledge related to State Budget and people engagement in the topic, (2) Building a voting platform for viewers to shares their ideas and comments, (3) Gathering public opinions to send to the National Assembly’s delegates before the National Assembly Meeting in June 2015.
A series of Todocabi’s activities is under an advocacy plan on budget transparency. The plan is implemented by a group of organisations working on budget transparency comprised of CDI, CEPEW, GPAR, ACDC and CECEM, with the support of Oxfam.
Transparent school is one anti-corruption and transparency strengthening programme within the framework of the VACI – winning project of the Foreign Trade University (Hanoi) in 2014. The project provides students opportunities to access and be updated with useful information on transparency and accountability in school. With the “The school confession”, students can share their own or their friends’ experience with corruption and lack of transparency in school.
The project “School is beautiful” is developed in the framework of the VACI – winning P88. It has received support from its management institution that is the Academy of Journalism and Communication, funding and technical support from the Vietnam General Inspectorate, World Bank, and Embassy of Finland (under the framework of Fund for Local Cooperation – FLC). The project helps students to build up healthy relationships with their teachers. It also helps them to differentiate right and wrong behaviours in the relationships with their teachers and gradually change their attitude in a positive way.
Integrity Me is the first communication contest on integrity in Vietnam which marked its journey with the Integrity Festival Night, introducing a series of new way to promote integrity among youth. Therefore, the contest organised by TT and the Brand and Communications Academy SAGE, attracted a wide range of young audience including students, officers, media and intellectuals.
Aiming to share knowledge, build capacity, connect youths and form a youth community choosing to live with integrity, the Integrity Me project will move ahead with a series of talk-shows, meetings, trainings and other communication events that will reflect youth spirit in 2105.
In early 2015, with the support of TT, a 5-member-team participated in a training course on Integrity and Transparency for youth in Siem Reap, Cambodia. “Humans of Integrity” was born in the end of the course with efforts to connect people in Vietnam via their true stories of choosing to live with integrity. As one of those projects that are under the Youth and Transparency Movement being implemented in 8 Asia-Pacific countries and funded by Transparency International (TI), “Humans of Integrity” will receive technical support from TT – the national contact of TI in Vietnam. Humans of Integrity is planned to be launched in mid April 2015.
“Anti-Corruption International” is an international project initiated by youth and launched in late March 2015. It was established with the objectives to raise awareness and organise campaigns to engage youths in anti-corruption. The project was born after The International Student Festival in Trondheim (ISFiT) in 2015, in which issues related to anti-corruption were discussed among 450 young participants from 110 countries. The project has its contact in Vietnam.