Mekong Delta 2021 Good Practice Photo Contest was held 28 August 2021

We have been conducting the Mekong Delta International Training Program, aiming to learn Participatory Action-Oriented Training (PAOT) on occupational health since 2000 in Can Tho City, Vietnam. However, it was cancelled last year due to COVID 19. 

In 2021, the steering committee decided to conduct a remote PAOT workshop on August 28. 　Learning from good practice photos is essential step to promote PAOT in a positive way.　So that in spite of COVID19 hard condition, we planned to learn and exchange participatory improvement activities among Asian countries by good practice photo contest.

We invited and asked practitioners in eight Asian countries (Indonesia, Korea, Cambodia, Thailand, Japan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Vietnam) who have participated in the Mekong Delta program to collect photos of their good practices, and we selected 30 photos in all collected photos.

How to collect photos:  Three photos per person should be related to safety and health, low cost, and communication. The maximum number of remote workshop participants is 100.

 

The contest made twice vote. The first was individual vote (one good photo, then two good photos) using GOOGLE FORMS.

The second vote is group discussions based on the individual voting results. It used the ZOOM breakout room, and each group selected five good examples in each area (Safety, Health, Low-cost, Productivity and Communication) and made a presentation.

Results

Collected number of photos: 192 photos from six countries.

(Indonesia 78, Korea 24, Japan 21, Bangladesh 3, Philippines 6, Vietnam 60)

Number of participants: 117 people from six countries (Indonesia 25, Korea 10, Thailand 1, Japan 16, Philippines 2, Vietnam 63)

Workshop schedule

The workshop started at 10:30 a.m. Japan time (8:30 a.m. Vietnam time) and consisted of individual voting for good practice photos, group work in 10 groups, and three keynotes.

The keynote presenters were Dr. Kazutaka Kogi (Ohara Memorial Institute for Science of Labor), Dr. Tsuyoshi Kawakami (The Mekong Delta International Training Advisor), and Dr. Ton That Khai (The Mekong Delta International Training Advisor).

The Results of Individual voting:

The results of individual voters: 101. The first was Vietnamese hospital’s COVID 19 measures (photo12 49 votes), followed by the Vietnamese hospital’s improvement case study the second (photo1 27 votes) and third (photo16 25 votes).The forth was push car improvement in Indonesian school (photo28 21 votes) and the fifth was reuse school improvement in Vietnam (photo7 20 votes).

The results of group discussions:

Group discussions were held in 10 groups. The most popular improvements in the group discussions were as follows.

“Safety” was the improvement of hospital in Vietnam.

“Health” was also the improvement of hospital in Vietnam.

  “Low cost” was to improve the learning environment for youth in Vietnam. “Productivity” was Korean factory and Indonesian school.

 “Communication” was the improvement of the Indonesian Health Center.

Conclusion

Despite the spread of COVID19, The International Good Practice Photo Contest was successfully conducted participating six Asian countries’ practitioners.

Collected 192 photos were in multiple areas, including hospitals, factories, construction, and schools.

Indonesia, Korea, and Vietnam were the high number of improvement photos and participants. The reason for this was thought to be that facilitators of these countries are actively practicing PAOT activities.

While remote workshops are affected by WEB conditions, there are almost no transportation and participation costs. It is believed that remote workshops can play an important role in the exchange and expansion of PAOT networks in Asia.