On Saturday morning, September 25th, 2010, the Green Living workshop was conducted at the Army Guest Hotel, No 33C, Pham Ngu Lao Street, one week after the start of The Green Days project. This was the final event of the project, closing a series of environmental activities held between 19/09 and 25/09/2010. A small workshop on the Neighborhood Walk was also held at the same time as the workshop with the participation of delegations from the communities Thuong Dinh, Ha Dinh, Phuc Tan, and Giap Bat, along with experts, visitors and staff from HealthBridge Canada, which sponsored the Neighborhood Walk event.
With the participation of many experts from environmental organizations, including PECSME, VCAP, Compass Company, CARITAS, IUCN, and HealthBridge, the Green Living workshop became an open forum where everyone could share knowledge, experiences related to protecting environment and building sustainable lifestyle in Vietnam. Organizations presented reports, surveys and results that they had done for many years as well and commented about environmental issues in Vietnam. The reports included:
- “Energy Efficency”, Speaker: Mrs. Nguyen Thi Nga, “Promoting Energy Conservation in Small and Medium scale Enterprises” (PECSME) project Consultant.
- “Green Transport” about the situation of using environment friendly transport in Vietnam, Speaker: Dr. Pham Ngoc Dang, president of Vietnam Clean Air Partnership (VCAP), Director of Center of Environmental Technology for Urban and Industry, Hanoi University of Civil Engineering.
- “Water and Life”, Speaker: Jake Brunner, Programme coordinator for Vietnam, IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).
- “Eco-wise Consumption”, Speaker: Ms. Tran Thi Hai, Executive Director, Compass Vietnam JSC.
- “Carbon Footprint and Tree Planting Campaign”, Speaker: Ms. Nguyen Thu Thuy, Caritas.
- “Neighborhood Walk and Green Living”, Speaker: Ms. Stephanie Geertman and Mrs. Nguyen Thi Hien, Livable Cities Consultant, Health Bridge.
The Neighborhood Walk workshop was the highlight of the event because the “Neighborhood Walk” program is an important event raising people’s awareness of walking as well as reflecting difficulties and obstacles hindering neighborhood walk in communities in Hanoi. Delegations from 4 wards in Hanoi participated in Neighborhood Walk workshop under operation of Ms. Nguyen Tue Anh, the staff of The Green Days project, and Ms. Nguyen Thi Hien, Consultant from HealthBridge Canada. In the workshop, representatives of each ward alternatively reported about the walk ability in their own community. Then, with the assistance of experts in construction field, they built a report reflecting all problems about walk ability in order to complain to authorities of Hanoi. The report then was indicated by Ms. Nguyen Thi Hien in The Green Living workshop and was acclaimed by audiences.
On the other hand, the Green Living workshop could have been not successful if there had been not the enthusiastic attendance of experts, journalists and visitors. They contributed significantly to the success of workshop by interesting questions as well as sharing their own ideas about environmental issues. Moreover, the appearance of Miss Vietnam 2010, Dang Thi Ngoc Han also made the communication better for the workshop.
In conclusion, “Green Living” workshop as well as “The Green Days” project in general made a strong impression on participants namely the project team, volunteers, green living clubs, and everyone else involved. We, the project team, on behalf of organizers and sponsors, really hope that The Green Days series will be expanded more and more in coming years and that the program will attract more and more people to “live green for green thousands of year”. We also sincerely thank volunteers; members of Green Living clubs in 4 wards namely Thuong Dinh, Ha Dinh, Phuc Tan, Giap Bat; news agencies; organizations; and many Vietnamese people for supporting the project. With citizens like you, we believe that Vietnam will become strong and green country in the world as the wish of many our previous generations.
