Field trip and first time in Hanoi
Originally posted on November 21th, 2013.
Within the class Political Economy of development we were given the possibility to participate in a field trip to Hanoi, Vietnam. It was a unique experience since I could see the country of my origin from a international development perspective. We visited institutions, each having different focuses and approaches. Through the specialists we gained different insights into the work of this field and their projects.
The meeting with the professor who is a gender specialist and activist in Vietnam was very interesting for me because I was focusing on the Law on Gender Equality for a research paper. Since she is a member of the National Assembly it was interesting to hear how she contributed much into the drawing and enactment of the law. Moreover the insight into her research and project in the field of domestic violence and trafficking of women showed that she achieved a lot towards gender equality in Vietnam. Besides our lecture, we got the chance to visit the campus of a vietnamese University, got to talk to some of the students and could see the student's campus life.
Right: Headquarter of the Asia Foundation in Hanoi, Left: View from the office building.
During our next visit at The Asia Foundation we talked to the representer of the headquarter and did not have the typical field experience like the visits at the Thang Long University or the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) visits. Since the aid they provide comes very much from the bottom-up approach in which a large part is regarded to the civil society development, it strengthened my wish to work in this field even more and I can imagine how the work in the field is like. A large part of this experience was due to the fact that we were able to link these informations to our knowledge. Moreover the headquarter representative gave us very unexpected personal experiences from his work and provided insights into recent issues in Vietnam's development.
Our second day visit was at the KOICA field office and we were accompanied to the KOICA project of the Judge's law school and a hospital in Hanoi. Through this field experience we could see the achievements of Korea's aid in Vietnam. Since we have gained insights into this field of study through the class readings and discussions, we could link our knowledge to the issues that the projects and people are dealing with and furthermore to ask critical questions to specialists in these fields.
The two days were as interesting as I expected and even exceeded my expectations. I think I would never have a chance to experience this if I would not have joined this class. Also I appreciated the time with all my classmates and I could get closer to them academically but also personally. I was happy that we all had so much fun and got along so well.
This field trip helped me much to develop my future interests in this field of study. I hope to find a work that is related to it and want to contribute my skills and knowledge into the field of developmental studies and the work in the field in order to help countries achieving peace, equality and prosperity.
This text was added during the blog relaunch and is based on my field trip report from December 4th, 2013.
