Thanks to effective coordination between the Population Committee and the leaders of missionary groups, positive changes have been seen in the way of thinking about contraception and birth-giving.
Mấp village in Ea Pok town, Cu’Mgar district, Dak Lak province has 389 households with 2,215 people, with different levels of knowledge and difficult economic conditions in which, 90 percent are ethnic people and 70 percent of them are Protestants,
In the past, mobilizing people to implement the family planning was very difficult due to language difference and traditional customs. Particularly religious people always believe and faithfully follow their religion so they attentively listen to leaders of missionary groups and respect their advice.
Understanding of this practice, the Population Committee of Ea Pok town and some collaborators in Mấp village have cooperated with leaders of Protestant groups to inform locals about the State’s policies and laws on population as well as right ways to take care of reproductive health and birth control. The propagation work has been included in twice a month preaching programmes twice a month at the village. In addition, the Population Committee of the town has also collaborated with leaders of Protestant groups in providing counsels to families and organizing meetings on reproductive health care and family planning.
The Committee has also invited leaders of Protestant groups to take part in training courses on population affairs in order to improve their knowledge so they can effectively communicate it to local people when coming back to the village. Mr. Y Roa Kbuor – Deputy Head of the Protestants group in Mấp village said: “in recent years, our villagers have become better aware of how to use modern contraceptive methods. Especially, young couples have volunteered to practice birth control”. Mr. Y’Nguu Eban and his wife H’Huong Adang in Mấp village are Protestants. Recognizing that having too many children is the cause of poverty, they decided to have only two children. The older is in the 10th grade and the younger is in the 6th grade. His family’s life relies on six sao (1 sao = 360 sq.m) of coffee and 1.5 sao of rice. Thanks to having only two children and working hard, his family’s economy has become stable. The family of Mr. Y’Tin Êban and Ms. H’Trinh Niê is also a religious family. Facing economic difficulties when they had only one sao of coffee and 1.5 sao of rice, they just have the first child. H'Trinh said her family is now keen on working hard to better bring up her child. When the family’s economy is better, they will have another child. There is a fact that in many localities having a concentration of religious followers, most of couples use their own family planning and do not take modern contraceptive methods because they would feel guilty if doing so. But in Mấp village of Ea Pok town, thanks to the good coordination between the Population Committee and the head of the missionary groups, thinking about using contraceptive methods and birth-giving has positively changed. After two years, the percentage of women aged between 15 and 49 with husbands using modern contraceptive methods has increased from 25 percent to 41 percent. This coordination should be implemented regularly in places, especially areas inhabited by religious followers in Dak Lak in general and in Cu’Mgar district in particular in order to successfully carry out population and family planning work.
Võ Thảo – Lệ Quyên (Theo Giadinh.net)
