Unit 1: All about culture.
Eating betel nut- A traditional culture of Vietnamese
According to old legends and documents, the custom of "Eating betel culture" has long existed since the reign of Hung Kings. Through ups and downs in society, eating and inviting betel still maintains it important position in Vietnamese traditional cultural value, especially in countryside and spiritual rituals.
Eating betel nut is not only the custom of Vietnamese but also tropical Asian, Central Asian, Southeast Asian and people in Pacific archipelagoes. However, the communicative meanings of betel nut varies among countries. In Vietnam, betel nut is the symbol of social relations and means of expressing mutual human affection.
Normally, A quid of betel consist of a folded leaf with white limestone and a piece of yellow arena nut. Some people prefer to mix betel nut, cinnamon bark and straw wisps together. The combination drives people to exotic feeling: sweetness of areca, pungency of betel leaf and bitter of areca nut and cinnamon bark.
Apart from health benefits, eating betel nut also enhance the beauty. Polyphenol extract from betel leaf has antibacteria agent. Or arecoline in areca nut combined with limestone redden lips. The girl with crimson lips and checks and a smile revealing black teeth because of chewing betel nut used to be the hallmark of female beauty in traditional society.
In spiritual life, betel nut is considered a conversation starter. They serve as offerings during religious rituals. Especially, in wedding ceremony, betel kits become one of the five important offerings brought to the bridegroom family.
Betel nut is very cheap, so the culture is not dominated by poor or rich discrimination. No matter how rich or poor they are, no matter who are they, Kings or residents, Kinh people or ethnic groups, all of them can express their affection by inviting betel nut. The only difference is betel kits which are made from various materials, ranging from high-quality materials like gold, silver, pearl, glass, ceramics to popular materials such as iron, wood, shell, bamboo or cloth.
Betel nut culture of Vietnamese had been the unique culture value throughout the history of the country. Today, betel nut eating practice is fading into obscurity. It is hard to see a country girl or old people eating or chewing betel nut.

UNIT 2: POVERTY EDUCATION IN DEVLOPING COUNTRIES.
2.2.1
The third international round table meeting on Management Based on Development Result opened on February, 6th 20017 in Hanoi. With the attendance of more than 400 experts and government officials from more than 40 countries, 33 aid providers and nearly 30 NGO, the meeting aimed to discuss how to improve the effect of development aid.
Accordingly, Deputy Minister PGK emphasized that: VN has applied effective methods and valuable experience from the world in order to build the 5-year-socio-economic development plan in the period of 2006-2010 towards innovation, encouraging the involvement of the whole society as well as sponsor community in VN. The goal of VN are reducing poverty by 2010 and becoming a manufacturing country by 2020.
2.2.2
The main causes to poverty are wars, political structure ( such as dictatorship, unfair world trade), economic structure ( uneven income contribution, corruption, resource shortage), outdated technology, poor education system, natural disaster, epidemics, overpopulation and gender discrimination.
2.2.3
Economic development is one of the main themes in the10th high-level meeting of Francophone countries which will be held in Burkina Faso in the next November. The important issues are fighting against poverty, providing micro-finance, establishing new partnership for the development of Africa and building a regional finance fund.
2.2.4
A recent report by FAO on June, 12th 2013 said that VN is one of the leading countries to have fulfilled the international goal of poverty reduction.
Accordingly, 38 countries has achieved the goal of poverty, especially reducing poverty rate by 2015. VN only has reached the goal of 50% of reduction malnutrition rate in the period from 1990 to 1992 and from 2010 to 2012. CEO of FAO highly appreciated the success of VN and other countries and said that the success will lead these countries to a better future. However, the report also said that although there is a drop in the number of poor people all over the world within the last decade, 870 people are malnourish and millions of others are suffering from vitamin and essential food deficiency.
2.2.5
One of the socio-economic goals of DN city is focusing on poor people, especially disadvantaged women. Therefore, in recent years, the purpose of operation of Women Association is supporting economic development, creating job, helping women increase their income. With the help of party agencies and local government, many household economic development models have been carried with high economic effect which enables women escape poverty.
According to the latest survey, till the beginning of 2009, there have been 32.769 poor households in DN city, accounting for 19,26% of the total number of household in the city. Till May, 2009, about 4.637 households in DN city have received support in many ways and 2.771 households have made effort to escape poverty, 2.249 of them are headed by women. To achieve such success, we have to first mention the role of Women association who give mental and financial support to disadvantaged women so that they can do their own business to escape poverty.

UNIT 3: NON-GOVERMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS.
3.2.1
A non-governmental organization NGO is an organization which is independent of government. Although this term can include profit groups, it usually refers to social and cultural organizations whose main purpose is non-commercial.
3.2.2
NGOs are established with different purposes. Many of them aim to promote political and social goals such as protecting natural environment ( Greenpeace), encouraging the respect to human rights (Amnesty International), improving the welfare for disadvantage people or representing for a union. There are many such organization and their purposes cover many aspects, including politics, society, philosophy and humanity.
3.2.3
NGOs operate in different methods and mainly belong to these 2 methods. Some lobby to create political pressure and the others hold programs and activities ( ex: Oxfam, whose purpose is to fight poverty and starvation launches campaigns to provide food and clean water to disadvantaged people.
3.2.4
Greenpeace was established in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1971. The organization is well-known for their campaigns against whale hunting. In recent years, it has shifted their focus on environmental issues, including global warming, destruction of ancient forest, nuclear energy and genetic engineering. Greenpeace sets up their regional and national offices in 42 countries all over the world. All of them are braches of Greenpeace International which is based in Amsterdam. The organization receives financial support from nearly 3 million people as well as funding of charity groups. However, they don't accept grants from government and corporations.
3.2.5
40 years anniversary of Greenpeace International
Till 2011, it has been 40 years since Greenpeace was established in 1971. Since then, these "greeners" always make great effort to prevent a serious destruction to the Earth due to natural and man-made disaster.
Greenpeace was established in Vancouver, Canada on September, 15th 1971. According to Daniel Mittle - Climate Change Specialist and Trade and Policy Advisor of Greenpeace, environmental issues in the surroundings have been becoming a major concern. Ecosystem and related topics draw much attention from people.
Mr. Daniel said that, 40 years ago, from the beginning of the organization, many people said that it was a crazy work. However, they completely change their mind because environment and its sustainable development are no longer a few people's concern but the concern of the whole. 20 years ago, many governments stated that they believed in sustainable development………………….therefore, it is important to establish such organization like Greenpeace to get people involved in finding necessary changes to ensure a green and peaceful planet.
He also reckoned that, with a few members at the beginning, after 40 years, there are about 2.500 members across the world. One of the largest offices is based in Beijing, China and this truly reflects important changes in the world. And finally, the most important thing to Greenpeace is passion.
" We are still depending on volunteers in the world. Everyone is willing to go ahead and say loudly that: It's enough, we need another progress, we need to work in another way to make a better life for our children,". It is all that haven't changed in the last 40 years. From the beginning, we used new technology technique which is later called " mental bombs" and used it in the first campaigns against nuclear power testing in Canada. Now, advanced media means such as the Internet, videos on Youtube are applied to create pressure on companies like Nestle and Volkawagen. The key element for all of our work is passion and belief in the fact that a small group of individuals work together and find support. They can change policies and then change future.
Greenpeace is a special organization. It operates independently and just rely on donations of individuals who believe in what they do. They don't receive grants form governments or corporations and they take pride in that.
There's no doubt that, the biggest challenge they have to confront is climate change which is destroying oceans, forests and threatening the chance of survival of millions of human beings. However, climate change has directly related to our behaviors like the way we use energy and traffic vehicle. These actions contribute to worse the situation