Hanoi Open University Students Hard at Work

The countdown for departure has already begun for the Canadian team from Capilano University to leave for Viet Nam. In 6 days they will board a flight to Ha Noi. Meanwhile, at Hanoi Open University (HOU) in Ha Noi, the Viet Nam project team of student volunteers are busy at work translating modules.

Over the past month, modules for the local government, small business owners, the community, village youth, and Ta Phin's newly-formed homestay committee have been developed. Worked, re-worked, re-arranged, evaluated, discussed, debated, work-shopped, edited, and formatted; on Sunday all the modules were finally ready to be sent for translating.

For the next week, the student volunteers, under the leadership and guidance of lead-consultant and HOU Tourism Dean Mrs. Ngoc Anh, will be going through all the modules and making them bilingual. The enormous task is being taken on by Trang, Hong Anh, and Toan (pictured below). Their efforts are invaluable to the PATA funded project.

It is hoped that when the project is nearing completion in 2012, an illustrated Community Based training handbook (with lesson plans) will be created, in both English and Vietnamese, that can be transfered to other Tourism and Community Development projects.