The Module 2 Training of TRE community facilitators were successfully implemented in Danang, Vietnam from June 1-4, 2023. 7 women, including women with disabilities participated in this training. They came from different provinces of Vietnam, including Danang, Hanoi, Quang Tri and Quang Ngai. This training firstly helped the participants to review basic knowledge on TRE that they already learnt from Module 1. Then, they learnt how to facilitate properly a TRE session for community. That included how to guide people to do exercises including making modifications for different target groups in the community, how to help practitioners to do self-regulate, self -intervention, etc. Therefore, there were lots of practice happened in this training. At the end of the training, most of the participants said they felt more confident to start guiding community to do TRE. Each team at each province developed plan to start practicing TRE sessions under the monitoring of TRE provider.

There has been no specific data of the amount of Deaf people in Danang city There has been no specific data of the total people with disabilities, including the Deaf affected from the previous natural disasters in Danang The Deaf community could not understand the public early warning given by Local Disaster Management Agency. The local Disaster Risk Management Agency do not understand sign language and could not provide accessible early warning for the Deaf! These are the crucial issues that we decided to organize the Training – Workshop on Disaster Risk Management for the Deaf. This activity was held on June 30, 2023 in collaboration with our local management agency, the Danang Union of Science and Technology Associations. The participants of this training workshop included representatives of Leaders of The Center of Policy and Disaster Risk Management Technique (under Viet Nam Dike and Disaster Management Authority), The Danang Center of Disaster Risk Management, Department of Labors, War Invalids and Social Affairs; Center Deaf Services; Danang DPO, Danang and Tien Giang Club of the Deaf and teachers from schools that have deaf pupils in Danang. Though the training - workshop lasted only for 1 day, it has brought the relevant stakeholders to sit together, shared and understood more clearly about their strengths and weakness in this matter; discussed and proposed the priority solutions/measures need to be implemented to make sure that the Deaf community in Danang will not be left behind in the local Disaster Risk Management program in the coming natural disaster season. The Deaf will be more active in participating in community activities to keep them safe, reduce losses and support other members in the community in the way they can.

To us, mental health health care program for the marginalized group is considered as a priority program, same as the sustainable livelihood program for them. It is clear that, when they have good health, inner peace and positive attitude of living, they can do what they want in their life easier, they can overcome the barriers challenging them easier and they can feel the happiness in their life. When they have inner peace, it will also affect the peace of the communities around them. So, they can be able to contribute to the world with positive energy, compassion and sharing. We are grateful for the wonderful continued collaboration of the Art of Living Vietnam in this meaningful program. Thank you so much for the dedicated collaboration of the Managing team, the amazing presence of each member of the Club of Independent Living of Danang in this health care activity via the breathing techniques. Thank you so much for all your positive sharing at the end of the session. It enabled us to evaluate how this activity is needed, the suitability of the method and initial effects for your group, the severe disability using wheelchair. So grateful for your amazing facilitation, Ms Tran Linh.

Thank you for the interesting visit of the professors coming from Hong Kong University of Technology and CELC Center, Da Nang University of Architecture. We had a great time sharing about our community projects from both sides. The project that enabled the students from Fashion Faculty in Hong Kong applied the knowledge learnt in university to help their community is really amazing. It opens new ideas for us in our current program of Upcycling for Wellbeing. And thank you so much for the comments on our upcycled products from the Professor on Fashion Design in Hong Kong, Ms.Jin Lam. We will share with our team about it. We hope you all have a great, succesful trip in Vietnam and hope your students will come to Vietnam in the future for their community projects.

The plan of organizing this event was made before COVID pandemic happened. However, we could not organize it and delayed until now. Therefore, when it happened, we were so happy. So much emotion came up the moment it happened. Especially, the moment we stood by Hoai river in the Old Town, watching each model with disability came out with their confidence and bright smile is the moment that we will never forget in our life. It was so touching and happy moment that we could not keep our happiness cries! We are grateful for the kind support of the People’s Committee, the Division of Natural Resources and Environment of Hoi An city to make this event happen successfully. We are grateful for all individuals, organizations, groups in different cities who had sponsored, supported us in sharing the event and preparing each step of the event. Your amazing love and support had enabled us to make this event successful. We will never forget your compassion and sharing! We are thankful for our partners, friends who had spent your time coming to participate our show. Your presence, especially those coming far from Hoi An, was a huge motivation for us in this special event. We appreciate your love! We would love to share our love & deep gratitude to other members in our organization team: Ms Phan Ngoc Xuan Thao, the designer and the tailors from Miukstyle shop, the S.E.A club, Cua tiem hanh phuc, Women’s Union of Cam Nam ward. Our love for environment and the marginalized groups are the “fire” that brought us together to make this event happen. Especially, we would love to express our admire, love and gratitude to 18 women with disabilities who became the model in this event. We believe all the guests who came to this event will never forget your confidence, charming and beauty. Keep inspiring other people and shining, the amazing ladies with disabilities! And thank you so much all CORMIS team who had tried your best to support silently and collaborate with our partners to make this event happen. Finally, thank you so much for all different teams of mass media for your presence and sharing our event. Your important contribution has enabled our event to reach so much more people in the community. Really appreciate your contribution!!! With our love and gratitude CORMIS team.

We continue to provide TRE for the communities living in Hoi An and Danang. Through our workshops, they have been raised on mental health, learnt how to use TRE safely in their daily life to help reduce stress. The workshops are open for all target groups in the community, including enterprises, students, INGO staff, local charity organization. The workshops have been implemented in collaboration with our partner Lang 3 and TRE Coffee - Lounge &Dining.

We have finished our Module 1 for 2nd group - Training of TRE Community Facilitators. It was such a great training, full of joys, emotion and sharing. Though our participants came from different area of Vietnam, have different background, different appearance, etc they came together as a team so quickly. Reasons might not only be the same sex, they have common interest in learning more deeply to use Tre effectively to take care of themselves and take care of their communities, including the at risk and marginalized members they are working with. Thank you for your self love and compassion for the community.

The linen upcycling workshop was organized in collaboration with our partner the Crafty Cow at their venue 02 An Thuong 37, Danang. This workshop enabled the participants to experience painting on tote bag upcycled from used linen like bed sheets, pillow cases, table clothes of the resorts, hotels. The upcycled bags were made by the women with disabilities working in the Upcycling Project for Well being at CORMIS. More than 20 children and youths participated in this workshop. They were very interested in making arts for these upcycled bags and happy with their creative painting. At the end of the workshop, each participant has their own beautiful bag to use. This workshop is one of the ways that aims to raise awareness of the community on reducing wastes in a creative way.

We are happy to participate in the BRIDGEFEST music festival together 31 organizations coming from Central, North and South Vietnam. The message highlighted in this event is “Narrow down the gap and work together for a human economy”. At this event, we introduced about themselves, the mission and our operating programs. The Up cycling program was shared in detailed to the participants. We also organized the workshop right at our booth where the participants can experience how to do up cycling work. In doing so, they can have more awareness on environment protection via reducing, up cycling the wastes

The WHO estimates that about 5000 people commit suicide every year in Vietnam and around 3.564.000 people are suffering from mental disorders, accounting for 4% of the whole population. The shocking data also reveals the extremely stressful reality faced by a particularly vulnerable population, people with disabilities. Aiming at improving the quality of life of community, including the people with disabilities in Vietnam, CORMIS has established partnerships with international experts to develop and implement innovative Self and Collective Care Methods for Stress Reduction and Resiliency Building. Our primary supports include: providing TRE sessions for different target groups, including people with disabilities (online & offline); training of community TRE facilitators, trainings of TRE global providers for those who wish to master on TRE. All these activities will be implemented in close collaboration with our international trainers. Besides, we also collaborate with other healing experts to provide other related activities, including nature dance, yoga, meditation, breathing, etc.

The beneficiaries of this project is also women, including women with disabilities. They are the ones who have been suffering a lot from the COVID pandemic. Coming to this project, the selected women will be engaged in all steps of the implementation process, including collection of the garbage of coconut shells, cleaning, upcycling them into different products and even selling to the market. Through this project, we want to create more opportunities for more disadvantage women in Central Vietnam to be able to continue working, helping them to solve the basic financial problems due to Covid pandemic. In particularly, we want to empower, inspire them to use their inner strengths to work and from that they will have more power to overcome their challenges. We love to receive support, under any forms, for this project to create more meaningful values for the community, Please Contact us for more enquiries.

These programs will be implemented when emergency situations happen and require material assistance for affected communities, for instance natural disasters, COVID pandemic. It can be goods or money to provide for the people who need external assistance to fulfill their basic needs due to the disasters happen. Prioritized target groups include children, women, the elderly and people living in remoted mountainous areas. Our main supports include: support blanket, basic food for adults and children, help to rebuild houses and restart business for living (adults), study (children) after natural disasters, provide materials for pandemic prevention and disaster risk reduction (example: lifejackets, generators, facemasks, washing hand liquid), provide water filtering system for schools in mountainous areas.

Locating in the Pacific Northwest tropical monsoon climate, Vietnam is one of the countries facing lots of natural disasters in the world. This is the place which has been affected by many different natural disasters like flood, storm, wind, cyclon, landslide, flash flood, whirlwind, etc. Natural disasters have made tremendous impact on economic sectors, increased poverty, negative effect on households in particular and community in general, contributing to the depression of environment and serious health issues. Together with the partners and related stakeholders, CORMIS has been trying to support material facilities and technique for local goverment, Steering Committee of Disaster Prevention & Control, Technical Support Groups at disaster prone areas so that they can be active in responding to natural disasters, minimize losses that can be caused by natural disasters. In the mean time, we also help the local communities to recover quickly after natural disasters. Through our efforts, we have tried our best to promote the active participation of all stakeholders and community, including the at risk groups, women in all process of natural disaster prevention & control, especially before disaster happens. Our support include: (1) Training, capacity building on natural disaster prevention & control, Community based Disaster Risk Management; (2) Assisting in developing technical guidance materials on Inclusive CBDRM, (3) Developing policy briefs to support advocacy efforts with decision makers (4), Evaluating the implementation and providing guidance for improving the quality of activities at different levels, (5) Guiding how to integrate inclusion aspect in the projects for community, (6) Supporting to implement other technical problems related to disaster risk reduction, for instance, early warning system, develop disaster risk map using QGIS, (7) Supporting to develop strategic and advocacy plan at national level.

We have successfully completed the mental health workshop for people with disabilities and care takers for the Agent Orgent Victims living in Danang city. The workshop was organized by the close collaboration between CORMIS and VUSTA following the proposal from the CORMIS. This is the first time the mental health workshop for the marginalized group, especially the people with disabilities, was held with the collaboration among different stakeholders, from local government agency, researching, teacher from University to mental health practitioners/trainers. And the financial support was from the Government fund. 2 days were not a long time; however, it enabled the participants to understand what it means by the concept of mental health, increased their basic knowledge on mental health; had more information of the Government’s policies and programs on mental health; listened and answered directly their related concerns. Besides, they had opportunities to experience different methods for taking care their mental health (meditation, yoga, tension release exercises). We were so happy to receive so much positive feedback from the participants at the end of the workshop: “This is so meaningful workshop for us. We felt so lucky to attend this workshop. This is the place where we can share to release our sadness which was kept so long. A place that we have fun, happiness, gain more confidence, change our way of thinking for life and way of loving ourselves. The methods that we experienced are quite suitable with us. We can feel the immediate benefits after trying, for instance, less pain on our back and neck; we had better sleep last night. The knowledge we learnt on mental health in this workshop also help us to know how to talk/deal with the children at different age to encourage and not to harm them for their mental health later on in their life. We want to set up small groups in our communities, share the knowledge we learnt for more people. We want to involve more in this mental health program”. We are so grateful for the participants’ sharing and their active participation in 2 days workshop. See you all in our following activities. We are grateful for the close collaboration and dedicated support from the VUSTA, Dr Hang Phuong from the Danang Pedagogical University; the Danang trainer team of yoga, meditation from the Yellow Lotus Club; Vice Director of DoLISA, mass media in Danang, Danang DPO and Association for Agent Orgent Victims; Club of Women with disabilities from Quang Tri, Quang Ngai province and the CORMIS staff. Your amazing contribution had turned this workshop into a successful and meaningful event./.

Capacity building for Disabled People Organizations, Clubs of Women with disabilities to help them to be able to work independently and effectively. Without proper capacity, they cannot develop, implement and evaluate their implementation strategy which aim to help change the life of people with disabilities at communities. The capacity building also help these organizations to be able to implement effectively the tasks given by the local government. So, it will add their value and improve their active role in contributing to local sustainable development. Our topics of training include: meeting facilitation skill, operation strategy development and implementation, project management, club management, communication campaign, inclusive first aids, English etc…The needs of training will be consulted directly with the Disabled People Organizations before they are implemented to ensure they meet the requirements and solve the problems of Disabled People Organization. Besides the trainings, we have also tried to provide working equipment so that they can apply the knowledge learnt in their daily work

The Upcycling project is created and implemented by CORMIS, the social enterprise Green Youth Collective (GYC) and Sutenainet Japan. This project's key function is to up-cycle used finishing nets from the fisher men, the high quality discarded fabrics from luxury hotels, resorts and tailors into useful products that directly benefit the at-risk communities in Central Vietnam. We aim to educate local youth and women-with-disabilities with entrepreneurial skills that secures income generation; and build community by connecting people and resources into the loop of sustainability. Besides the efforts of upcycling wastes, we have also collaborated with Clothes for Compassion from the Workshop to collect and give used high quality clothes for the poor people who need clothes in many provinces of Vietnam, including Danang, Quang Nam, Lang Son, Son La, Yen Bai Our main supports include: collaborate with partners to study and execute upcycling models using different kinds of wastes, set up and train the upcycling team on the knowledge and skills related to the model of upcycling, upcycle products and find the markets to sell the upcycled products, provide free upcycled products to the marginalized people for instance: hats for patients with cancer, school T-shirt for children living in mountainous areas….