August 2008

Although the national poverty rate

fell from 58.1 per cent in 1993 to an es-

timated 16 per cent in 2006, poverty re-

mains in Vietnam, especially among the

ethnic minority population who tend to

live in remote, isolated and mountain-

ous regions of the country. As Vietnam

develops, the gaps between rich and

poor people, between urban and ru-

ral populations, and between the Kinh

and ethnic minorities are widening. For

example, the poverty rate among Kinh

and Chinese is only 10.3 per cent, while

among ethnic minorities, poverty stands

at 52.3 per cent.

In the central highlands of Quang

Tri, where a farmer named Ho Thi Hom

lives, she and her fellow Van Kieu peo-

ple face a poverty rate of about 62 per

cent. Quang Tri and Nghe An are two

VIETNAM: Farming and the Gods

SOUTH AFRICA: AIDS and Welfare

INDONESIA: Mining and the Body

HONG KONG: Youth, Video and Change

GODS, PEOPLE, LAND and INCOMEVan Kieu farmers in VietnamBy Pham Tung Lam

Ho Thi Hom has doubled her rice harvest in Oxfam's project / Photo: Pham Tung Lam

I recently went to southern Africa

for an international poverty meet-

ing in Johannesburg and to observe

Oxfam Hong Kong projects with wom-

en in Zambia.

By the time I left, I was reassured of

two things: Oxfam must continue our

work in the region, and our strategic

goal of improving people’s livelihoods

and sense of security are the right pri-

orities, especially for women.

While I was in Johannesburg, vio-

lence against foreigners broke out in

the townships. Violence is an everyday

occurrence in South Africa, and by far

the most shocking is gender violence:

every year, more than one million wom-

en and girls are raped. A girl born in

South Africa has a greater likelihood of

being raped before the age of sixteen

than of learning how to read.

Oxfam is supporting coalitions

of women’s groups that campaign,

educate and lobby against the vio-

lence. The people in these coalitions

are doing excellent and urgent work,

but maybe my Oxfam America col-

league Ray Offenheiser says it best,

“to describe them as ‘heroes’ would

be to understate the value and im-

portance of their

contribution.”

My next stop was

Zambia , which faces

lower levels of violence, but

a higher poverty rate. The country

ranks 165th out of 177 in the United

Nations Human Development Index,

partially because it neglected the ru-

ral areas for many years, so poverty

kept increasing. There is now more

community development work being

done to provide rural people with a

better life.

Oxfam Hong Kong, for one, is

focusing on bet-

ter agriculture that

will bring in more

income, especially for

women. I v i s i ted vi l lages

where women are growing high-value

crops, both to earn more money and

for better nutrition.

Oxfam knows that women are the

backbone of most rural communities

– literally in terms of hauling water

and firewood and tilling the land,

but also in terms of their willingness

to work in collective efforts for the

betterment of the whole village. The

projects I could see firsthand reaf-

firmed my belief that our focus on

empowering women is the right way

forward in Africa.

In the rest of O.N.E, you have the

chance to read about AIDS in South

Africa, land and religion in Indonesia

and Vietnam, and youth and social

welfare in Hong Kong. Enjoy the

read.

John SayerDirector General

Oxfam Hong Kong

GODS, PEOPLE, LAND and INCOMEVan Kieu farmers in Vietnam

priority provinces for Oxfam, and it is no

coincidence that both areas have high

ethnic minority populations, particu-

larly Quang Tri.

Ho Thi Hom, 52, grows rice, cassava

and corn on the slopes of Truong Son

Mountain, near Laos. It is steep land,

at 2,500 metres high. She also raises

chickens. When her rice yield doubled

by applying new farming methods, her

husband and three children all agreed

that it was the most important thing

that had ever happened to the family.

On harvest day, they killed three chick-

ens for a feast, and invited neighbors

to celebrate their happiness.

“Before the project began, life was

so difficult for us,” Hom recalled. “We

worked all day in the fields, but we

could never grow enough to eat.

“The project also helped build my

confidence,” she continued. “When I

saw how successful the demonstration

plots were that had been set up in the

village, I thought I should try something

new… We started with just one ‘sao’ of

land, and I saw such good results.”

Encouraged by the experiment with

the one sao (500sqm), she and her hus-

band decided to use pellets of an envi-

ronmentally-friendly fertiliser made of

nitrogen, phosphorous oxide and po-

tassium oxide for the whole rice paddy.

Strictly speaking, this was against the

traditional customs of the Van Kieu,

who believe their God named Yàng Cute

would not allow any human interven-

tion with the soil – it was seen as an in-

vasion of the God’s domain.

The Van Kieu believe in Yàng, with

different Yàng for the forest, moun-

tains, rivers, rice and other things in the

natural world. If any of the Yàng Gods is

angered, that Yàng may express it in the

form of storms, bad harvests, or bring-

ing illnesses to the people. Yang Cute is

the God of land.

Hom also believes in Yàng, prays reg-

ularly, and makes offerings of chicken

and sticky rice to ensure that Yàng is

happy and supportive of her crops. For

important occasions, Van Kieu people

may even sacrifice a buffalo, their most

prized farm animal.

In the past, Hom’s average rice yield

was only 100kg per sao, compared with

250kg on the coastal plains. This was

only enough to feed her family for six

months. For the other half of the year,

she had to spend about US$100 to buy

her own rice, and would rely on rice

from the national reserve, which the

government allocates to poorer prov-

inces. To raise that US$100, she would

sell her chickens or pigs, forage in the

forest for mushrooms, and engage in

logging.

“Raising pigs was a hard job then,”

Hom said. “I got up early in the morn-

ing to cook the pig feed, worked in the

fields all day, and when I returned home

late in the day I couldn’t rest at all. I had

to prepare the feed again.”

Her life changed for the better when

she joined the rice cultivation train-

ing in 2006; the activity was part of a

market-based model by Oxfam Hong

Kong and International Development

Enterprises (IDE) which aimed to im-

prove the incomes of 200 families. She

carefully observed the demonstration

models and then attended additional

training in a new way of production

and fertiliser application called ‘fer-

tiliser deep placement’. She also learned

about composting. Her rice yield is now

almost 200 kg per sao annually, twice

as much as before, and the family food

supply is secure.

“At first, I did not believe the meth-

ods because we had never seen them

applied in our village. The results were

so clear and the application so easy, that

it just seemed too good to be true, but

it was!” Hom said, holding some newly

harvested rice in her hands.

She also tried new ways of raising

her two pigs through the Oxfam-IDE

training. No longer does she cook feed

but makes a simple mixture of fish, wa-

ter, and powder from cassava, rice and

peanut. She also learned about animal

nutrition and after three months, her

pigs weighed 60kg each, bringing in a

significant extra income.

“It used to take us twice as much

time to get half of what we had now.

Therefore, we decided to continue with

the new method and we were able to

make over 200,000 VND net profit from

just one pig,” she said with a smile, and

a hint of pride.

With the money and some savings,

Hom built a better, enclosed latrine

for the family, and enlarged the pig

sty so that she could raise four pigs at

a time.

“I will definitely raise even more pigs

in the future,” she said. “I feel very com-

fortable with this new no-cook method

and I don’t think I will ever go back to

the conventional way. I now have more

time to look after my children and the

rice paddy.”

Hom is now more than a farmer: she

is also a trainer. She belongs to a group

of key farmers who teach hundreds of

other women in the nearby villages

about the new cultivation and the pig

raising methods.

Yàng does not seem to be up-

set. There is harmony. The villagers in

Quang Tri still respect their Gods, the

land and themselves.

Pham Tung Lam is Communications Manager with Oxfam Hong Kong. He is based in Hanoi.

in South Africa

There is a serious challenge in the

South African government’s HIV and

AIDS response.

Currently, the government offers

several social support grants to its citi-

zens in need, including the disability

grant which HIV-positive patients can

apply for. At around USD107 per month,

this grant may seem minuscule in this

middle-income country that ranks in

the world’s top 20 GDP. Yet, one-third

of the families in South Africa live on

less than USD 100 a month, one-third

of the population is unemployed, and

the country’s rich-poor gap is one of the

widest in the world.

Simply put, the government’s so-

cial grants have become integral to

many families’ survival: for very poor

families, the grant can be twice the av-

erage monthly income. Studies show

that the disability grant has been used

to support entire families, and house-

holds with access to social grants have

been more likely to work their way out

of poverty.

People with HIV must have a T-cell

count below 200 to be eligible for the

disability grant. (The lower one’s T-cell

count is, the weaker the immune sys-

tem.) Another requirement for HIV-

AIDS patients is that they must be un-

dergoing antiretroviral (ARVs) treat-

ment. All this seems quite logical and

appears to be a pretty good deal.

Yet, there is a problem.

Let’s say a person’s T-cell count is

175. She or he goes on ARVs, gets the

disability grant, and begins to feel

healthy again. The immune system is

strengthening, and therefore, there

are fewer infections and other illnesses.

Then, because the ARVs are doing their

job, the T-cell count goes up over 200,

above the limit. The grant is promptly

stopped.

Considering the importance of the

income provided by the grant, HIV pa-

tient-recipients have sometimes been

willing to take risks to ensure that the

funds continue coming in. So, in order

to keep the T-cell count below the 200

limit, some patients have been known

to reduce the prescribed amount of

ARVs or stop taking them altogether.

They put their own health at risk for

the sake of the income, which may be

supporting their whole family. What

started as a way to curb the pandemic

as well as poverty, has sometimes led

to a conundrum with huge and highly

problematic implications.

Oxfam is aware of this trend and

is monitoring the situation to develop

ways to address the issue. Since 1998, we

have been running large-scale anti-HIV

and AIDS programme in South Africa

to prevent the spread of infection, to

improve treatment, to reduce stigma

and discrimination, and to advocate for

AIDS in SOUTH AFRICA• AIDSistheleadingcauseofdeath

• Deathrateishighestamongwomenofchild-bearingage,female

teenagers,andyounggirls

• About4.5millionpeoplehadHIVin2000

• 18.7%ofadultsage20-64,wereHIV-positivein2004

• 10.8%oftotalpopulationwereHIV-positivein2004

• KwaZulu-Natalhasthehighestprevalencerate,asof2005

• about6millionpeoplewilldiefromAIDS-relatedcausesoverthenext

10years

INCOME OR HEALTH: Can HIV Patients have both?

better legislation. For several years, we

have been focusing on KwaZulu-Natal,

the province with the highest preva-

lence rates, and in Limpopo. An exter-

nal evaluation conducted in 2004/2005

recommended that we scale-up the pro-

gramme, and we have begun working

in Eastern Cape, too.

Sources: South Africa Department of Health, South Africa National HIV Survey (2005)

For more information on HIV & AIDS: http://www.thebody.com/content/art6110.html

Navin Vasudev leads Oxfam Hong Kong's work in southern Africa from his base in Johannesburg.

Photo: HIV test at an Oxfam-supported organisat-ion in Phalaborwa, South Africa / Oxfam Australia / Gcina Ndwalene

Photo: Pham Ngoc Tinh

By Navin Vasudev

National Park. Local government has

also allowed marble mining of the

mountains. In all, the land accessible

to the people is getting smaller and

smaller, as is their sense of well-being;

the forestry policy and government-en-

dorsed development projects have im-

poverished the people.

The Mollo people have tried many

ways to regain their land, through di-

alogue, negotiation, demonstrations,

and even sabotage. They have won

some, lost others, and refuse to sur-

render. They have been intimidated,

threatened, beaten and imprisoned for

their dissent, yet remain strong in their

views, firm in their commitment to re-

gain what has been lost.

People of Mollo view nature as body:

stone as bone, soil as flesh, water as

blood, and forest as skin, lung and hair.

Stone is particularly essential in their

view. Without stone, life is incomplete,

unstable, frail, tentative.

Stone does more than strengthen

the soil and keep it secure through

rain or wind. People of Mollo believe

that stone absorbs and retains water,

and therefore can keep the surround-

ing soil moist and fertile. Stone is the

foundation, above which is soil, and

then topsoil.

People’s respect for stone is appar-

ent throughout Mollo history and ev-

eryday culture. Two of their words for

‘stone’, ‘fautkanaf’ and ‘batunama’,

even lead to many surnames, including

the names of these main clans: Ba'un,

Fui, Lasa, Nani, Seko, Sumbanu, Tanisip

and Toto. (Interestingly, few names

come from ‘water’.)

Of all the stones in Mollo, it is

Naususu that is revered first and fore-

most – it is considered to be the oldest

stone. The word Naususu means a moth-

er who is breastfeeding, so the stone

can be regarded as the first mother.

The Mollo people also liken the Naususu

stone to a strong root, and the moun-

tain that surrounds it as tree branches.

Thomas Ola, a traditional doctor and

community leader in Mollo, explains it

this way, “roots of a tree support trunks

and branches, so if the roots are pulled

out, the tree will collapse, and if the

trunk is damaged, the tree will sink.”

Nevertheless, the Nusa Tenggara

provincial government has given per-

mission to a mining company to oper-

If you find time to come to West

Timor, drop by Mollo. It isn’t a must,

but you will not be dissatisfied with

the beauty. Mollo has cool air, casua-

rinas trees, rocky hills, savannas, cows,

wild horses, and people will welcome

you into their round homes, and wear-

ing beautifully hand-woven clothing,

even though they may have little to of-

fer you by way of meals or gifts. Poverty

is part of what will guide you around

the island.

In a way, Mollo is already the richest

part of Timor. With rivers and moun-

tains, including Mutis Mountain, the

highest in West Timor, there are many

natural resources. Mollo borders Mina

River and Timau Mountain, and almost

everyone here is a farmer, growing corn,

tubers and other crops, and rearing

cows, buffalos and horses. The animals

are branded and then either worked to

plough the fields or let loose to roam

the grasslands, much of which used to

be forest. Most people have between

0.1 to 0.5 hectares of land which is seen

as being owned both by the community

and by the family. Little of the crop is

set aside for seeds, most of the land is

not irrigated, and there is only one cul-

tivating season: one harvest must last

for the whole year. This has been the

Mollo way of life for centuries.

In Mollo, people feel deeply con-

nected with nature. They realise they

are alive because of nature, and to-

gether with nature. Thus, they knew

their life would be ruined if separated

from nature. This happened when the

Forestry Department began its refor-

estation of the savanna plains back in

the 1960s. Through the decades, hun-

dreds of thousands of casuarinas trees

have been planted by the company

Hutan Tanaman Industri on thousands

of hectares of indigenous community

land, mostly in 1974, 1977, 1983, 1996,

and recently. The trees have exhausted

the water supply, and when the land

was fenced in, animals could not easily

reach what water remained. Separated

from nature, thousands of livestock

have died.

Other government projects have

also affected the land, essentially

changing the ownership from communi-

ty land into state-owned land with dif-

ferent status, from Production Forest,

Protected Forest to Nature Reserve or

Initially, the Mollo people did not

understand marble and mining. When

the talk of marble began, they thought

it would beautify the stone, and they

agreed to the plan. They soon realised

that mining meant cutting up the stone

and transporting it out of Mollo, and

they strongly protested. They filed a

case against both the local govern-

ment and the mining company, which

has tried to mine six mountains. Five

mountains have been protected, but

Naitapan Mountain, in the village of

Tunua, was ‘skinned’ three years ago.

Flesh has been torn. Bones protrude.

Waste stone covers the base of the

mountain.

A village woman named Naomi

Mnune talks about the impact in Tunua.

The water quality and supply has de-

teriorated. The Tokseko, Tokseok and

Kuisfolo springs dry up, something

which has never happened before, she

says. “There are 48 families who use the

springs. Now we have to walk farther

away, for two hours, to get water at the

next village. Then, we have another two

hours to carry it back home. Our life is so

much more difficult. Lots of tubers have

died, as has corn. Our livestock drink wa-

ter that has been contaminated by min-

ing waste. First their heads puff up, then

they die.” Naomi has lost seven cows

and eighteen pigs since the mining be-

gan, and she says her neighbours have

lost more. Last but certainly not least,

landslides come, slowly but frequently,

covering homes, crops and sometimes,

people. The Naipitan experience has

convinced every last person of Mollo to

reject marble mining.

But please do not change your mind.

I still suggest you visit Mollo. At least

you will be able to enjoy the natural

beauty of the land, even if it will come

with destitution. I also think that a spe-

cial inner beauty will come to you, a

beauty felt in the Mollo people’s deep,

physical connection with nature. Their

pursuit of well-being is sure to inspire.

When you come, you will see a

five-kilometre-long fence encircling a

mountain that had once been mined

for Naususu and Anjaf, but which has

since been stopped due to the hard

campaigning of the Mollo people. Made

with local timber by local people, the

fence is a symbol of their work to re-

claim their stone, their bones, their land

and their rights. Every time I see the

fence, I imagine them standing hand

in hand, as strong as a rock. As long

as there is rock, there is also flint, the

promise of fire, of change, for a stron-

ger, deeper life.

Siti Maemunah is the National Coordinator of Mining Advocacy Alliance (JATAM). Oxfam Hong Kong began working with JATAM earlier this year.

All photos by NM Rulliady

ate precisely in this Naususu stone. The

company has about 20 different min-

ing sites in the Mollo and nearby Flores,

and the capacity of marble is said to be

approximately 3.5 trillion cubic metres.

Typically, the company cuts Naususu,

the stone of all stones, the bone, the

mother, the root of life, into one-me-

tre cubes.

NATURE AS

BODYLand

and Life in Mollo, Indonesia

By Siti Maemunah

Naitapan Mountain was 'skinned' for its marble, despite protests by the residents / Photo: NM Rulliady

One of many peace zones established in Mindanao

CO

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Hong Kong

VOICE

OXFAM HONG KONG WEBSITEwww.oxfam.org.hk

OXFAM BOOKSTwo books have gone into their

second print run: one on disasters

and poverty, featuring new articles

on the Sichuan earthquake and

the Myanmar cyclone, and the sec-

ond on people who receive social welfare in Hong Kong. Both books featured at

one of Asia’s largest book fairs, at the end of July. Both books are in Traditional

Chinese.

To order books: www.oxfam.org.hk/public/bookstore/list

OXFAM in the NEWS HONG KONG – CNN quoted Oxfam Hong Kong (on 7 July) that the government’s

main welfare scheme, Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA), is still

“seen as charity” by the public, even if the bulk of the recipients are elderly. In Hong

Kong, 1 out of 7 people is elderly, and 2 out of 5 of them are poor. Oxfam has

been advocating CSSA reform since 2003 and views receiving the assistance as a

“basic right”.

PHILIPPINES – GMANews.TV reported (on 18

July) the launch of a new 10-year programme in

Mindanao, by Oxfam Hong Kong, Oxfam Great

Britain and Oxfam Netherlands. “Poverty is greatest

in Mindanao [as high as 47%] and is exacerbated

by conflicts,” an Oxfam spokesperson said. The

programme will focus on income generation and

peace-building, with gender justice and minority

rights as essential components.

MOKUNGOxfam Hong Kong publishes this quarterly magazine

in Traditional Chinese. Mokung, which means both “no

poverty” and “infinity”, highlights a different aspect of

development in each issue. The Editor is Tung Tsz-kwan.

The March 2008 edition looks at the poverty news poll

in Hong Kong.

To subscribe: www.oxfam.org.hk/public/bookstore/?lang=big5

Mokung is online at www.oxfam.org.hk/public/contents/category?cid=1017&lang=big5

ONEO.N.E – Oxfam News E-magazine – is uploaded

monthly at www.oxfam.org.hk/one.

To receive a copy in your inbox, please sub-

scribe – it is free.

To subscribe: www.oxfam.org.hk/one/subscribe.html

17th Floor, 28 Marble Road, Northpoint, Hong Kong

O.N.E is also on-line: www.oxfam.org.hk/one

Editor: Madeleine Marie Slavick emagazine@oxfam.org.hk

HONG KONG CLIMATESix action groups call for carbon dioxide emissions to be capped in the Air

Pollution Control Ordinance: right now, the Hong Kong SAR Government does

not regulate CO2 emissions of its two power companies, which account for about

70% of all CO2 emissions. Please add your voice to this campaign (http://write-a-

letter.greenpeace.org/407) – if action is not taken soon, now, Hong Kong winters

may disappear within just 20 years, according to The Hong Kong Observatory.

Oxfam Hong Kong is also calling to stop climate change, to stop the poverty

it is bringing around the world: http://www.oxfam.org.hk/public/contents/

category?cid=53988&lang=iso-8859-1.

Every day, Oxfam Hong Kong works

alongside hundreds of groups around

the world, from small NGOs to inter-

national bodies, from government de-

partments of developing countries to

community groups based in Hong Kong.

Here is 1 ‘partner organisation’ that we

New PartnerOrganisation

are supporting for the first time. The

location indicates where the project is

being implemented.

CHINA (MAINLAND)• China Labour Studies Centre at Beijing Normal University

“We don’t read our world from

books, we don’t listen to the radio, but

you can catch our attention through

the image. Nowadays, we use our eyes

to receive and respond,” said Tommy, a

teenager who joined an Oxfam Hong

Kong training at the Hong Kong School

of Creativity. “Faced with so much mass

media, we don’t spend an hour to read

through all the information and digest

it, we select the parts that catch our eye:

this becomes our perception. I see how

the Hong Kong public has perceived re-

cipients of CSSA (the government’s main

social welfare scheme), and that’s why

we’re making short films to respond to

these impressions.”

Tommy was one of 15 participants,

aged 15 to 17, who joined the three-

month training by Oxfam and Video

Power, with video-making, poverty

analysis, and dialogue with poor peo-

ple who receive social welfare. The

youth developed their creative skills

to work against discrimination against

these welfare recipients in Hong Kong,

and this primarily happened because

the youth saw, heard and felt, face to

face, the real situation: the people’s

daily poverty and their tears and anger.

Tommy and other teenagers said that

they had never imagined so many dif-

ficulties; they had no idea that the ap-

plication procedure was so humiliating

and intimidating, almost always with

delays and mishandlings, and some-

times treated with outright rudeness

and disrespect, both by civil servants

and the general public. It seems no one

in Hong Kong, CSSA and non-CSSA re-

cipients alike, wants to have to depend

on welfare, as they know they will be

looked down upon: self-reliance is an

extremely strong norm in Hong Kong.

Comprehensive Social Security

Assistance (CSSA) aims to provide a ba-

sic assistance for low-income people,

most of whom are elderly, people with

a disability and single parents. Based

on the Oxfam-commissioned survey,

“Perception and Utilization of the CSSA

- A study on views of the public on the

lower income people” in June 2007,

the predominant view is that recipients

are “lazy, not willing to find a job [and]

abusive” of the welfare system. Some

of the public also believe that “the ex-

pense for CSSA in government is increas-

ing every year and will be a burden to

Hong Kong’s economic growth”. Most

respondents got their information from

television (75 per cent) and newspapers

(71 per cent).

The participants decided to voice out

the CSSA recipients’ reality by making

a two-minute film, which took them

three weeks, and then uploading it to

Youtube. They screened the film at a

press conference protesting CSSA dis-

crimination, at which they shared their

experiences with the press as well as

with the four Hong Kong Legislative

Councilors who also attended. “If we

assume accessing social security is a ba-

sic right, we should not discriminate

against the people who exercise this

right,” Tommy said.

Oxfam Hong Kong has provided this

kind of short-term interactive training

with youth since 2006. “It has allowed

our students to be immersed in a social

issue for a few months long, which sel-

dom happens,” said Winkie Ho, a teach-

er at Hong Kong School of Creativity.

“The outcome of visiting real cases [of

welfare recipients] is much more pow-

erful and effective than a typical school

lesson. Through the video, the youth

also spread the message to their class-

mates. I really believe that it has been

a wonderful experience for the partici-

pants, not only for their intellectual de-

velopment, but also for their personal

growth and confidence build-up.”

Oxfam Hong Kong has always seen

youngsters as drivers of positive, sus-

tainable change. The youth programme

has developed through the years :

Oxfam gave talks to schools in the

1970s and 80s, established the Resource

Library in 1992, set up Oxfam Club in

1997, Cyberschool in 2000, and the

Interactive Education Centre in 2005.

Through a more interactive approach,

such as by using visual art, drama and

photography shooting in workshops

and trainings, youth have more ways

to speak out for themselves, and for

poor people.

Genna Leung works on development education with Oxfam Hong Kong.

in Hong Kong

Video for Change Text and Photo by Genna Leung