At the ceremony held in Hanoi, Naomi Kitahara, UNFPA Representative in Vietnam, handed over the kits to Bui Quang Huy, Standing Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union cum President of the Vietnam National Union of Students, to support the elderly in the three central provinces of Ha Tinh, Quang Tri and Quang Ngai who were severely affected by the historic flooding last year.
The activity follows UNFPA’s earlier provision of dignity kits to support women at risk of gender-based violence in floods-affected provinces in Vietnam. The handover was made possible with financial contributions from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).
The country’s central coastal region has suffered unprecedented flooding from prolonged downpours and successive typhoons since early October last year, resulting in more than 200 deaths recorded so far and displacing thousands of people. At least 7.7 million people in the region have been affected, including an estimated 1.3 million women of reproductive age, with over 92,000 of them being pregnant, and 143,000 people over 65 years old.
According to a joint rapid assessment carried out at the outset of the floods in the most affected areas of central Vietnam, with support from UNFPA, health facilities have been hit hard by floods and landslides, forcing routine public health programmes disrupted and making older people among the most vulnerable affected when communities struck by natural disasters.
Dignity kits are a signature product of UNFPA's comprehensive package of humanitarian assistance to safeguard sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls, mitigate the risk of gender-based violence and respond to and protect the dignity of women and girls adversely affected by a crisis. UNFPA is also extending the kits to other vulnerable groups including the elderly.
Addressing the handover ceremony, Standing Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, Bui Quang Huy, highly appreciated UNFPA's support and affirmed that the Youth Union, in its continuous effort promoting the contribution of young people to the society and communities, will request the Provincial Youth Unions of Quang Ngai, Quang Tri and Ha Tinh to deliver the dignity kits to each older person in the flood affected areas as quickly as possible.
Naomi Kitahara, UNFPA Representative in Vietnam, informed that this time, dignity kits were adjusted to meet the special needs of the elderly, slightly different from previous ones for women; they are in red buckets for the elderly women, and in yellow budgets for the elderly men.
Red and yellow are the colours of the Vietnamese national flag, and the dignity kits in red and yellow are meant to signify solidarity, between women and men, and between old and young people in Vietnam, the UN official stated, adding that UNFPA expressed its appreciation to the Youth Union for lending a helping hand to meet the special needs of the elderly population, which is an initiative that is both promoted and advocated by UNFPA.
