Programs

10 days of preparation 10 different outfits 2 countries and 1 joy! On January 12th, 2024, Da Nang University of Architecture became a canvas for vibrant expression, echoing the triumphant finale of the Fashion Show program. This wasn't just a runway, it was a tapestry woven from countless emotions. Days of collaborative brainstorming, meticulous garment crafting, and finally, the euphoric unveiling of collective creativity. Most profound of all, however, was the invisible thread that transcended differences - of culture, language, age, or background. We were all pilgrims to a shared destination, each brushstroke contributing to a masterpiece far greater than ourselves. And when bathed in the spotlight, our brothers and sisters with disabilities, hand in hand with the student designers, took the stage, and met with thunderous applause, the world seemed to hold its breath. It was a moment etched in eternity, a symphony of triumph, a chorus of joyful tears. This, truly, was the essence of the show - a testament to the transformative power of human connection, where art becomes a bridge, and joy, a universal language. From the bottom of our hearts, we extend our deepest gratitude to the incredible teachers and students of Da Nang Architectural University (DAU) and Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) for their invaluable companionship during our recent special event. It's through our close collaboration in recent times that we've been able to share uplifting messages with the community about the boundless power of connection and acceptance, illuminating the true essence of love. We eagerly anticipate our next collaborative ventures, where we can continue to create meaningful projects together. Please accept our sincerest appreciation for your dedication and partnership. We appreciate all the organizations, individuals, and groups who have supported and helped us communicate, promote, and take care of the stages of running the event program. It was the love and enthusiastic support of the brothers and sisters that made this event a success. We are forever grateful for everyone's kindness. We extend our sincere gratitude to our valued partners and friends for their dedication in participating in the program. Your esteemed presence served as a source of constant motivation not only during the program but also for future endeavors. We deeply appreciate the unwavering support and enthusiasm you have shared. Deserving of special mention are the ten incredible models with disabilities who graced this event. Following last year's impactful recycled Ao Dai show, you have once again radiated positivity, illuminating the hearts of all present. We are filled with immense gratitude and respect for the unwavering spirit and inspiring companionship each of you displayed. Keep shining brightly! Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to all CORMIS members, who silently stand behind each day to prepare, support, and create this special event with our partners in the organizing committee.

After Miuk style, we are happy to collaborate with Thinh Minh Anh enterprise within the Project of Upcycling Program. This collaboration aims to introduce and create another channel to help sell upcycled products made by the team of people with disabilities to the market. On November 19, 2023; the MOU signing ceremony between CORMIS and Thinh Minh Anh was held with the witness of many related stakeholders and organization of people with disabilities at Viet Nam – Innovative Hub of Danang city. At this event, representatives of people with disabilities coming from the Upcycing Project came and share their thought about their participation in this project. Mr Vo Duc, one of the members of the Upcycling team said “this is the first time I have the honor to participate in this kind of event to share about my family and my job. Feeling inferior about being a Deaf and his voice which made his friends laughed at it since he was young at the school, he was very scare of standing and talking in front of a huge number of people. However this time, even though still have the same feeling of worry and tremoring, he could be able to speak slowly (though not very clear) to introduce about himself and the upcycling work he is doing. It might be thanks to the loving eyes, compassion and admire from the participants for his living courage has inspired him to speak confidently. The collaboration of the enterprises in the Upcycling Program will create more motivation for Mr Duc as well as other members with disabilities to work so that they can live confidently and independently.

With the same goal on raising awareness and supporting Community to actively take good care of their mental health, we have collaborated with our amazing partner, TIA Wellness Resort to provide series of related workshops for community in Nov 2023. These mental health activities have been conducted by TIA Wellness Resort experienced staff, focusing on group and one to one therapy approach that enabled the participants to release tension & stress, recover from trauma. The methods included Breathwork, Sound Healing, Tai Chi Class, Creative Workshop and Mindful Reiki Touch. The 1st group of participants are those coming from different background at the community, including people with different disabilities and members of VCIL Education Organization. Through these workshops, the participants have been guided to bring themselves back into balance & harmony; connection with their inner landscape, open up authentic expression; clearing the mind and re-establishing emotional well-being to heal the heart and soul. We will continue this Community Outreach Program in 2024.

We had a truly meaningful time with dear friends coming from Asian countries to participate in the 4-day SECOND ASIA REGION ECOVERSITIES ALLIANCE program in Hoi An, Vietnam. They are independent researchers, alternative educators, climate researchers, freelance educators, entrepreneurs, community leaders, organic farmers, and more. They are contributors to building locally-rooted learning spaces to promote community solidarity, sustainable ecology, and local economic development. During these 4 days, many members brought their projects and experiences to share, including projects on alternative education, projects on sustainable agriculture,... In addition, there are projects that empower and promote social inclusion for disadvantaged people that CORMIS and HIRAYA Collective for the Blind have been doing. The program has truly created favorable conditions for sharing diverse experiences, working together, discussing, and supporting each other to create new, creative, and meaningful projects for the community. Many participants found their community; Like-minded people who can understand their individual paths, thereby it was easy for sharing, sympathizing, understanding, and supporting each other. Ecoversities has become a space where people can express their authenticity, differences and connect with a family that shares their values. Participating in this program, in addition to receiving a lot of useful information from international friends, we also had the opportunity to share with the participants about the projects that the we have been implementing. In particular, they also had the opportunity to talk directly with disabled women participating in the Upcycling Project and experience the mental health activities that we have been serving the community, including TRE and Dork Dancing. Immediately after finishing the meeting program in Hoi An, we collaborated with HIRAYA Collective for the Blind to organize a sharing and exchange workshop between the amazing friends from HIRAYA Collective and the representatives of Deaf, people with mobility disabilities living in Da Nang. This activity also helped people with disabilities in Da Nang gain more information, knowledge, and skills on how to support the Blind. Most importantly, it has created a bond between disabled brothers and sisters in the two countries and supported a gradual change in thinking from "impossible" to "possible" in the thinking and actions of disabled brothers and sisters in Da Nang, Vietnam.

In collaboration with FPT Education Global, in 2023 we began supporting Japanese & Brunei students to participate in internships at CORMIS. Following their proposal, during their internship, they participated in many environmental protection activities, for example, participating in picking up trash at the sea, sorting and arranging left over fabric/used linen at the ware house to be upcycled at CORMIS, practicing upcycling some products from leftover fabric... In addition, with the coordination of the VCIL group, the students also had a film viewing session and in-depth discussion on issues related to the environment, for example “What is the Economics of Happiness”. During the internship days, the students have the opportunity to work directly with the upcycling team of people with disabilities. Therefore, this interaction also helped them to better understand life of people with disabilities in Vietnam. This is also a way for the international students to access the model of supporting people with disabilities to live confidently and independently with their ability to work that the Center is implementing. Sharing thoughts after the internship at CORMIS, Yurkia Asahi shared: “I want to say thank you for teaching me how to sew bags. I had a great time during my days volunteering at CORMIS. I learned many valuable lessons here, for example knowing how much fabric waste is generated. I think I know the amount of food waste and other waste produced by humans. However, I never thought that the amount of fabric waste could be so large. Looking at the fabric waste warehouse here and knowing that there is probably a lot more fabric waste out there, around the world, this really hits me hard. We also went to the beach to pick up trash here. When I first arrived I thought there wouldn't be much trash. However, when I started walking along the beach to pick up trash, I realized that there was a lot of trash hidden under the trees. This makes me feel very sad. I realized that, even if it was just a small piece of cigarette butt, if I kept picking it up it would turn into a big pile of trash. During my 3 days at CORMIS, I thought a lot about how much waste humans create and how important it is to reuse and recycle waste. I also think a lot about my country, Japan and Vietnam. The waste management regulations of the two countries may be different. However, it is important that we care about our country and care about environmental protection. However, we are all on the same team and I think we all need to work together to improve environmental issues. I think the women here are very strong and are doing very important things. I would like to thank everyone and thank you for what you are doing. I hope that cleaning up the fabric warehouse can help you handle recycling more easily."

This morning, nearly 100 children at the Village of Hope, a center raising disadvantage children in Da Nang, participated in our workshop. After more than 2 hours, the children learnt basic skills of sewing to be able to solve basic problems on their clothes, if it happens. The kids shared: “ they normally see the strings broken out at the bottom of their trousers but they don’t know how to fix it, they want to learn how to sew a straight line but they don’t know how, ect”. After learning these basic lessons, they continued learning how to sew basic stuff for their own usage, for example, make scrunches, a small bag to put their pens inside, a book mark to use…All the materials they use were left over fabric. This was how they learnt about fabric waste and how to reduce waste to protect environment. Ms Le Phuong Thao, Vice Director of the Village said: “the image of the teachers with disabilities teaching the kids how to sew will be their inspiration to study. The skills they learnt this morning, though we normally thought they are such a simple thing in life, but in fact, they are really useful and meaningful for the kids. Garbage if we know how to use they will become our resource. So, I think, this morning workshop teach the kinds useful lessons. We know if the kids stay out of this village, they still grow up. However, the importance thing is who they will become? So, what we guide them since they are young is really important”. We understand the difficulties, challenges and concerns of the teachers in the village and we also want to cultivate “good seeds” in the kids, even starting from very simple, small lessons. However, these lessons will contribute to build their independence, confidence and more than that. Thank you Microtec company and the leaders of the Village for your great collaboration with us in this program. We look forward to next workshops for the kids.

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….