The Mekong Delta program started in 2000 based on the agreement of the Center for Occupational Health and Environment Can Tho (ECHO), the Institute for Science of Labour (ISL) and Tokyo Occupational Safety and Health Center (TOSHC).
There are 3 aims in the training course.
1: Learning from participatory action-oriented training such as WISE (Work Improvement in Small Enterprises) and WIND (Work Improvement in Neighbourhood Development),
2: Exchanging the achievements among participants,
3: Applying training results into new training course of each country.
The methodology of the training course is called Participatory Action-Oriented Training (PAOT). Two types of training programs are carried out at one time in the Mekong Delta program. One is the training for local people and the other is that for facilitators. Through the training course, local people get the knowledge of how to improve their daily lives and working conditions, and also facilitators learn how to improve their facilitation and their training skills. The training tools are consisted of action checklist and photo book of good practices which were collected from local working and living life. The training course was held 10 times every summer, the total number of participants was more than 700 from 18 countries. In Japan, Korea and Bangladesh, 10 participatory improvement programs were developed by practitioners and activists after the Mekong Delta international training.