Organizing resource user group

On April 23, the 4th local resource user meeting was organized at the community house of Vo Thanh Van village in An Thanh Nam commune. Aims of this 4th meeting were to organize the resource user group and to establish the group leadership. 

The meeting started with identifying locations on the satellite image of Vo Thanh Van village. People were asked to show on the map boundary of the village, some main roads, schools, the sluice gate No. 4 and four locations of previous meetings. People were also encouraged to show positions of their houses and to estimate the thickness of mangrove forest in their village, which was about 700 – 800 m. This activity served as a warm-up and helped people better visualizing the area of the co-management group. 

It was agreed that the resource user group would be divided into 2 sub-groups based on their localities. The role and responsibility of sub-groups’ leaders as representatives for people in future negotiation with local authorities and as messengers were then be explained. Desirable qualities of a sub-group leader was discussed and concluded as “dare to speak out, dare to do” (being courage and confident), trustworthy, having knowledge on forest, being able to read and write and enthusiastic.

People were gathered into 2 sub-groups, one sub-group stayed at the community house (1) and the other sub-group moved to Mr. Thach Lanh’s house nearby (2). The election of the sub-groups’ leaders now took place at both sites with longans used as votes. People were first encouraged to nominate themselves if they felt that they had all the qualities desired for a sub-group leader.

In sub-group 1, there was only one female candidate, Ms. Tran Thi Ngoc Lanh, nominated herself and was approved by 100% of all other members in the sub-group. 

 Ms. Tran Thi Ngoc Lanh, the only candidate nominated herself in sub-group 1

 Mr. Ngo explaining about the procedure for vote of confidence

 Ms. Tran Thi Ngoc Lanh was welcome back by the sub-group 1 after the result for the vote of confidence was stated.

On the other hand, in sub-group 2, there were 4 male candidate nominated. The selected leader for sub-group 2 was Mr. Thach Son, who got 18/30 votes (60%).

AD explaining the election procedure for sub-group 2

Mr. Thach Son, the selected sub-group 2 leader with 60% approval

The two sub-groups then joined together again to start election for the whole co-management group leader. It was quite a balanced situation when both sub-group leaders got nearly equal votes. Finally, Mr. Thach Son, who got only 2 more votes compared to Ms. Ngoc Lanh (24 vs. 22) was chosen as the co-management group’s leader.

 Counting votes after the co-management group leadership election

Conclusion at the end of the meeting

After the election and announcement of the leadership, people were encouraged to support their new sub-group and group leaders for better future co-operation and co-management process. At conclusion of the meeting, the fruits were shared to all.