One of the prominent marks of the term was the work of supporting women in start-ups and business initiation, contributing to enhancing women’s economic empowerment. The provincial Women’s Union successfully organized 4 provincial-level “Women’s Start-up Ideas” competitions, attracting 115 creative ideas imbued with local identity and the spirit of innovation. Notably, 6 start-up projects of Điện Biên women achieved high prizes at national and regional final rounds organized by the Central Vietnam Women’s Union, affirming the increasingly professional capacity, bravery, and economic thinking of mountain women. Along with that, the Union supported the establishment of 7 new cooperatives owned by women; the whole province currently has 434 female directors and female owners of enterprises and cooperatives. Among the owners of 138 OCOP products in the province, up to 42 subjects are female, accounting for nearly 49%.

Associating the women’s movement with the National Target Program on New Rural Construction, the provincial Women’s Union effectively deployed the campaigns “5 No’s, 3 Cleans” or “5 Yeses, 3 Cleans” through specific, practical actions. The movement “Every rural household has 1 clean vegetable garden and raises 10 poultry and 1 cattle or more” was deployed deeply and widely, bringing clear results: Over 80,600 members have clean vegetable gardens, nearly 81,000 members raise at least one cattle according to criteria; and 4,250 families met the “5 No’s, 3 Cleans” standard. From small models, the movement has contributed to improving the quality of life, improving the rural environment, and directly contributing to completing new rural construction criteria in many localities.

During the term, the provincial Women’s Union clearly affirmed its core role in promoting gender equality, especially through the implementation of Project 8 “Realizing gender equality and solving urgent problems for women and children.” With 9/10 targets reaching 100% and many contents achieving high quality, the project created a widespread support network from the province to the grassroots level. The establishment of 540 community communication groups, 50 trusted addresses, and 96 “Leaders of Change” clubs not only helped raise awareness but also created safe fulcrums for disadvantaged women and children.

Patriotic emulation movements were strongly launched by Union levels, associated with major holidays and local political tasks. During the term, the whole province had 1,243 typical collective and individual examples of women detected and commended. The movement “Building modern Vietnamese women” with the criteria “Điện Biên women: friendly, creative, aspiring for development” created a marked change in the awareness and actions of members, becoming a motivation for women to confidently affirm their role and position in the family and society.

The work of supporting women in economic development and sustainable poverty reduction continues to be a bright spot. The Union effectively promoted internal capital sources and entrusted capital sources, with a total outstanding debt of over VND 1,300 billion, internal savings of over VND 25 billion, and the Provincial Women’s Development Support Fund of VND 4.5 billion. This helped thousands of members have conditions to expand production and business, supporting 4,215 members with loans to develop production and business, and establishing and maintaining over 50 livelihood models. Thanks to that, more than 10,600 women have escaped poverty and near-poverty.

Besides economic development, social security programs imbued with humanity were deployed synchronously and effectively. The “Godmother” program supported 273 orphaned children in especially difficult circumstances with a total funding of about VND 1.3 billion per year. Programs like “Accompanying women in border areas,” “Millions of gifts sharing love,” and activities supporting disabled and disadvantaged women mobilized tens of billions of VND, contributing to stabilizing lives and consolidating members’ trust in the Union organization.

The role of representing and protecting the legal and legitimate rights and interests of women continued to be consolidated through social supervision, criticism, and legal information dissemination. More than 1,100 supervision sessions, participating in contributing opinions on over 1,200 draft documents, and tens of thousands of legal information dissemination sessions contributed to raising legal awareness and promoting the enforcement of policies related to women, children, and gender equality. Innovating operational methods and applying information technology was an important highlight of the term. 100% of Union officials met standards in professional qualifications and political theory; the digital transformation movement was deployed with models gathering women in cyberspace, step-by-step improving digital capacity for members, meeting requirements in the new context.

With the theme “Điện Biên women promote the tradition of solidarity, creativity, aspiration, rising up in the new era; improve the quality of Union activities; contribute to promoting gender equality and great national unity, participate in building Điện Biên province to develop in the direction of a green, smart, sustainable economy, rising to develop well in the region,” for the 2025 - 2030 term, the Provincial Women’s Union strives that by the end of the term, at least 80% of members will meet citizen digital capacity requirements; 80% of members’ families will achieve the title “Cultural Family”; and annually, Union levels will improve in-depth knowledge and skills for 135 women with business start-up ideas/projects.

To achieve the set goals, the Provincial Women’s Union identifies supporting women to develop comprehensively, meet the requirements of the new era, and build prosperous, happy, progressive, and civilized families. The focus is on building the image of Điện Biên women as “friendly, creative, aspiring, developing,” associated with values of patriotism, bravery, wisdom, responsibility, digital transformation, and green lifestyle. Union levels promote information dissemination and education on tradition, ethics, and lifestyle; improve life skills, health care, and spiritual life; arouse the spirit of lifelong learning, develop reading culture, digital transformation, and innovation among women. Parallel with that is the deep and wide deployment of the campaign “Building families of 5 No’s, 3 Cleans, 3 Safes,” and models like “Happy Family,” “Digital Family,” “Women Living Green,” and “Godmother,” contributing to creating a safe environment for women and children.

The Union focuses on enhancing women’s economic empowerment, considering this a key solution to promote gender equality and sustainable development. Union levels effectively deploy schemes supporting women in start-ups, economic development, and cooperatives; encouraging women to participate in sustainable production and business models, green economy, digital economy, and circular economy; supporting business households owned by women to convert into enterprises and build OCOP products. The Union prioritizes accompanying poor women, ethnic minority women, women in border and difficult areas; strengthening capital connection, trade promotion, value chain linkage, promoting the role of the female entrepreneur team, and step-by-step realizing the goal “each woman - one family - one economic development model.”

The provincial Women’s Union pays attention to participating in building a clean, strong Party and political system and developing a professional, effective Union organization. Union levels strengthen legal information dissemination, social supervision, and criticism, protecting the legal and legitimate rights and interests of women and children. Membership development work, building “Digital Union Bases,” “Digital Branches,” and innovating operational methods are suitable for the 2-level local government model. The Union actively expands people-to-people diplomacy, especially in border areas, contributing to maintaining stability, strengthening cooperation and international integration, promoting the role and position of Điện Biên women in the new development stage, and contributing to building Điện Biên province to develop in the direction of a green, smart, and sustainable economy.

Pờ Diệu Ninh

Member of the provincial Party Committee, Vice Chairperson of the provincial Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee, Vice Chairperson in charge of the Women’s Union of Điện Biên province