HERproject Inspires in China and Vietnam

Authors

• Racheal Meiers

  Former Director, BSR

I’ve just wrapped up a 10-day tour of China and Vietnam, including visits to seven factories participating in HERproject with the support of Abercrombie & Fitch, HP, Li & Fung, Marks & Spencer, Nordstrom, and Talbots.

HERproject uses a peer education methodology to provide women’s health education to factory workers in China and Vietnam, as well as in Bangladesh, Egypt, India, and Pakistan. Factory-line workers, human resources officers, and line leaders all are trained to share critical information on reproductive health, safe sex and HIV/AIDS, nutrition, and pre- and post-natal care, among other topics.

These past two weeks, I met with some of these amazing peer educators, who take leadership roles in their factories to help protect their colleagues from poor health and to empower them with the information they need to live healthier lives.

As seen here, factory workers receive training on safe sex in a HERproject-participating factory in Vietnam.

In the picture above, peer educators receive HERproject participation certificates in China.

At the ceremony, one of the peer educators said: “This is not an ending of the program—we will keep training and our production managers said this program would never stop. We want to make this place a family, not just a factory.”

In interviews, the women also said they had received no information on women’s health from their parents—all their knowledge has come from HERproject trainings in the factory.