Alive & Thrive (A&T) in Viet Nam

In Viet Nam, A&T engages in communication-related activities that revolve around policy dialogue, the creation of partnerships (e.g., with the Government of Viet Nam and other international and local organisations), and capacity-building for one-on-one and group lactation and nutrition counselling by skilled providers. In so doing, A&T is drawing on multiple communication channels including print materials, a mass media campaign, and the internet. Specifically:

Strategy 1: A&T is involved in policy dialogue for evidence-based decision-making at national and provincial levels. This involves:

• Developing province-specific and national policy goals and advocacy strategies based on policy research;
• Engaging Provincial People's Committees to allocate increased resources to IYCF;
• Identifying, recruiting, and training members within the Viet Nam Women's Union, the media, and other key opinion leaders as IYCF champions at both the provincial and national levels;
• Strengthening compliance of the Code of Marketing of breastmilk substitutes;
• Supporting extension of maternity leave from 4 months to 6 months to remove one of the barriers to exclusive breastfeeding;
• Engaging medical practitioners/associations to counter widely held misconceptions and protect and promote the importance of exclusive breastfeeding; and
• Providing technical support for national policy/strategy development.

Strategy 2: In 2011, A&T and the National Institute of Nutrition launched 492 franchises for IYCF counselling services in public health facilities and trained more than 14,000 people to deliver and/or promote quality IYCF services. In 2012, A&T will launch 250 more public franchises and pilot 5 franchises in private health facilities. The franchise model combines IYCF one-on-one counselling services to pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, and fathers, along with group activities. Refresher training, training courses on supportive supervision, and ongoing monitoring are designed to help ensure that the franchises provide quality services. In remote areas that will not be served by a franchise, A&T is training members of village teams to establish and facilitate 700 IYCF support groups.

These health facility and community activities are being supported by a communication strategy that includes TV spots, franchise branding materials, print materials for clients, counselling cards, bus advertisements, loudspeaker broadcasts, and a website with a forum and online counseling. The first two TV spots, launched In December 2011, promote breastmilk as a product and aim to build the confidence of mothers to breastfeed early and exclusively for the first 6 months. Earlier in 2011, pretests of 4 concepts with 32 focus groups showed that the favorite concept promoted breastmilk from a baby's perspective and used scientific evidence to support the claims. In the TV spots, a 4-month-old baby and a 6-month-old baby talk to each other.  Click here to read the production story and view the video spots.

Strategy 3: The objective of the third strategy is to work with local food manufacturers to improve the quality and availability of fortified complementary food products. A&T conducted a willingness-to-pay study of micronutrient powders and is exploring partnership possibilities for launching a product.

Strategy 4: The measurement, learning, and evaluation strategy includes a baseline survey in 15 provinces, process evaluation, ongoing monitoring, a cost-effectiveness study, and an impact evaluation in 2014. A&T works closely with the National Institute of Nutrition to track progress and measure results through annual surveillance exercises.

Children, Nutrition.

A&T observes that more than one-third of children under 5 in Viet Nam are stunted, and only 17% of infants under 6 months of age are exclusively breastfed. Thus, A&T will work to increase exclusive breastfeeding among infants under six months old by 62% (from 17% to 27.5%) and to prevent stunting in 54,000 children under 5.

The Alive & Thrive YouTube channel is here. A few of the videos to be found there (in addition to the two TV spots viewable at the URL provided under Strategy 2, above) include:

• TV Spot: Early initiation of breastfeeding
• Launching a franchise model (English)
• Launching a franchise model (Vietnamese)
• The starting point: Conducting the baseline survey
• Interview clip with A&T Viet Nam Project Director