As mentioned in previous posts, the main propose of my mandate here is to assist the agriculture cooperative leaders to improve their business management and marketing skills. The first 4 months Nhung (the National Volunteer) and I spent conducting research to identify the training needs of the leaders and preparing a workshop on business planning and marketing.During our research we discovered that the management capacity of the cooperative leaders varied greatly. We had to develop a training session that would benefit all the leaders. Our goals were to make the training interactive so that the leaders could share experiences with each other and to give them relevant examples so that they could apply the concepts to their own situation.
I must admit, I was a bit nervous about how well they would participate in a classroom setting. The majority of the coop leaders are male, aged 50+, agriculture background, and high school would be the highest level of education. Needless to say, the group demographics are not particularly used to sitting in a classroom for 8 hours!We had planned many group activities, case studies, group discussions, etc. and some lecture. We held two 2-day workshops both with 18 leaders in attendance. To my pleasant surprise, they were very active.
We started the sessions with a cooperative game. They had to work silently in groups to work out a collective solution. It was a hit!
This group is brainstorming ways to sell vegetables to restaurants and the local markets!
And here they are presenting their ideas to the larger group! You can see they even got creative by drawing pictures to express the customers needs.
*Notice the Uncle Ho Chi Minh bust in the back. He sees over all conference rooms in government offices.
Here is Mrs. Mui, the only female coop leader out of the 25 coops in Da Nang. She is the head of a mushroom growing cooperative and it is one of the most successful in the region. She is presenting her groups analysis of a case study. They had to identify the sample cooperative's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Mr. Phuc shares his experiences with finding buyers for the rice and vegetable farmers of his coop.
These gentleman were having a difficult time understanding the need to treat specific customer groups differently. This exercise helped them understand that the needs of household customers are very different from the needs of restaurants and market vendors. They had to consider different pricing strategies, delivery, packaging, buying patterns, etc.
Overall the Coop leaders were very pleased with the training and afterward many of them spoke of getting together on a regular basis to share ideas amoung the group!!! I was hoping for this and the fact that they are taking the initiative themselves to form the group is excellent!
It wasn't only the coop leaders who learned something from these workshops. I learned a lot about the different teaching styles in Vietnam and Canada. In Canada, my experience with learning (especially adult learning) has been very interactive and the teacher facilitates discussion. Students are encouraged to ask questions, challenge theories, and add real life experiences. In Vietnam, the teaching style is much more authoritative. The teacher gives the information and the students study it, memorize it, and treat the teacher with the highest respect. So much so that questioning the teacher is often out of the question! During the workshops, I would ask the group if they had any questions, anything they didn't understand, anything they would like to add, etc. The room would always fall silent. Even when bribing them with treats and prizes to encourage discussion it was absolutely apparent that they were not accustomed to contributing in this way.
At the same time, in my Vietnamese language classes I often give suggestions for how I could learn better and always come to class with a list of questions. My teacher does not respond well to this and I could never understand why. Especially because I am paying for individual classes. It wasn't until after the workshops that I realized that I was probably insulting my teacher by doing this. And I thought I was being a conscientious student!!
While the Vietnamese can enhance their learning environments by encouraging students to ask questions and think creatively, I believe Canadians could also enhance learning environments by having a greater respect for the teacher, as we have been loosing this more and more over the years!! This is an excellent demonstration of how intercultural learning is often mutually beneficial!
Our next step is to choose 3 or 4 cooperatives to work with directly over the next 3 months to help them develop their own business and marketing plans. Stay tuned and feel free to make comments!!
