Men also make home

Discarding tired gender roles, a group of men from northern Vietnam are helping their wives take care of their children thanks to support from World Vision’s nutrition clubs.

An old Vietnamese saying says men make a house, women make a home. But thanks in part to World Vision’s nutrition clubs, a group of men in Luc Yen district are contributing to the latter by helping their wives take care of the children.

Back home from the field, Phong goes straight to the vegetable patch, picking and carefully washing some lettuce leaves. Next, he fetches an egg from the nest, skillfully separating the yolk and putting it in a bowl. On the stove sits a pot of rice porridge that he made early in the morning, before he went to the field.

It is 11:20am and already he is preparing food for the third time in the day. “All I need to cook a nutritious meal for my son is an egg and a handful of sweet leaves, which don’t cost anything,” he says while feeding his child.

 With World Vision’s support of breeds and farming techniques, Phong are using his farm produce to prepare nutritious meals for his children

Phong is making porridge for his children based on what he learnt from World Vision’s nutrition club

In Na Bo village, the sight of men like Phong taking care of their children is now familiar. Yen, a village health worker, says: “The old saying says men make a house, women make a home. But I’ve held communication sessions in the nutrition club so men can make houses and help their wives to take care of their children.”

Previously, Phong would leave the tasks of feeding and looking after his children to his wife, Thanh. Unaware of the four food groups that children need to grow properly, she would give them any food that was available.

Since joining the village’s World Vision-established nutrition club, Phong has understood that fathers should play no less a role than mothers in nurturing children. Together with his wife, he has not only gained knowledge of nutrition, but has also practiced cooking healthy meals.

Phong’s children can now enjoy adequate dietary intake from their home-grown ingredients

Thanh says: “We didn’t know that to cook porridge, you must follow a set process and use proper ingredients.”

Phong is also a member of a livelihood development group initiated by World Vision. Equipped with knowledge of poultry-raising techniques as a result, all his chickens now grow healthily. Some he sells and the rest provide meat and eggs for his children.

He says: “World Vision’s support in our village is really significant. Watching our children thrive on good food and their parents’ love makes us more than happy.”