| IMOLA Project > Activities > Capacity Building > VFPMSE |
Food processing was identified as one of the needs area as a result of PRA and TNA in 2006. Further, in August 2007, the IMOLA Project undertook the additional needs and commodity assessment for village food processing, marketing, and small enterprise (VFPMSE) development with an assistance of a food processing consultant from Thailand. As a result, six communes were selected as target communes for capacity building. These target communes were Vinh Hien, Loc Binh, Vinh Phu, Phu Xuan, Hai Duong, and Quang Cong.
To establish a group of key, capable trainers to provide the field-level training in the future, a Training of Trainers (ToT) session on Village Food Processing, Marketing, and Small Enterprises for Livelihoods Promotion was delivered from 8 to 24 October 2007 in Hue City. Total of 25 training participants (24 women and 1 man) from commune, district, and provincial levels were covered under this ToT. The training also received two observers from the provincial Fishery Extension Center (now merged into the Agriculture and Forestry Extension Center).
The training combined lecture sessions in the morning and practical sessions in the afternoon, covering the basic principle of food processing, food preservation methods, food hygiene, marketing (incl. customer and competitor analysis as well as product, pricing, and promotion strategies), small enterprise development (incl. book keeping, financial management, and business planning), and communication and group work skills to be good trainers.
Towards the end of the ToT, the participants were geographically divided into groups to formulate their action plans for further commune/village-level training with identification of key commodity and products as well as potential market in each target commune. These follow-up action plans were further discussed within each target communes after the training, often under the coordination of commune women's union and commune people's committee, for finalization and were supported by the IMOLA Project for implementation.
In early 2008, these commune/village-level trainings were organized in six communes, covering around 40 participants per commune and using the locally available commodities, applying the techniques learnt from the previous ToTs. In the commune/village-level training, the participants of the ToT played a main role as facilitators and instructors for commune/village level participants, with the financial and administrative support from the IMOLA Project. For the training and the post-training food processing activities, each commune was equipped with simple food processing equipments.
In the above training process, the IMOLA Project also translated and provided the Manual on Village Food Processing, Marketing, and Small Enterprises in Vietnamese for key trainers, as well as commune/village level trainees. The manual for key trainers is available in both English and Vietnamese while the simpler manuals for commune/village-level trainees are available for each target commune in Vietnamese from the IMOLA Project.
For more detail on the VFPMSE activities, please refer to the following reports:
| ♦ | Training of Trainers on Village Food Processing - Empowerment through Enterprise Skills Development [TNA] (N.Tongsiri, Aug 2007) |
| ♦ | Training of Trainers on Village Food Processing - Empowerment through Enterprise Skills Development (N.Tongsiri, Oct 2007) |
