Project: Improving the nutrition status of children 0-24 months in Thuong Xuan District,
Thanh Hoa Province
SOW – Viet Nam
Consultant conduct end line survey
Project site and project overview
Save the Children International in Vietnam (SCI) works to promote every child’s right to survival,
protection, participation and development as set forth in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The current program focuses on the following core sectors: health and nutrition; HIV and AIDS
prevention, care and support; education; child protection; child-focused emergency preparedness and
response; child rights agenda, including civil society development, economic opportunities, child poverty
research, and integrated child development; and advocacy for child-friendly development policies and
practice.
The proposed project “Improving the nutrition status of children 0-24 months in Thuong Xuan District,
Thanh Hoa Province” has been developed by Save the Children (SC) and the Department of Health
(DoH) of Thanh Hoa province to implement in 10 communes of Thuong Xuan district since October 2012.
The project aims to improve infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices during the first 1000 critical
days to ensure that every child the project site has a healthy start to life and is enabled to reach full
potential. These objectives are attained through four key activities: (i) providing training on IYCF for
health staff and community based workers; (ii) interpersonal counseling delivered through an IYCF
Support Groups and the use of mass media and communications channels;(iii) applying components of
the integrated management of acute malnutrition model; and (iv) piloting household nutrition gardens
for households with children from 6 – 24 months.
Thanh Hoa is the largest rural province in Viet Nam. Eleven of its 27 districts are mountainous and home
to ethnic minority communities including the Thai, Muong, H’mong, and Dao. With 30,5% of children
under five stunted (110,000 children), Thanh Hoa has the highest number of stunted children in Viet
Nam. In addition, a total of 19,7% of children under five are underweight and 7,8% are wasted.
Thuong Xuan district is one of 11 mountainous districts of Thanh Hoa. Thuong Xuan is occupied by a
large number of ethnic people including the Thai (54%) and Muong (4%). The Kinh comprise 42% of the
population. With a poverty rate of 34,4% and with diversified ethnic minority groups, Thuong Xuan has
been classified as one of Viet Nam’s 62 poorest districts.
There are a total of 7,364 children under five and 3,207 children under two in Thuong Xuan.
Malnutrition is a burden for children under five in Thuong Xuan with 30,5% are stunted, 27,2%
underweight and 3,8% wasted. Toghether with high poverty, lack of hygienic conditions, poor and
inappropriate IYCF practices are the main drivers of malnutrition of children in the district. The project is
currently implemented in ten of 17 communes of Thuong Xuan District
Project results
1
After 3 years and a half, a comprehensive package of activities has been implemented to improve
nutrition status of young children in the areas. Key highlights are presented according to the four pillars
of the project.
(i)
Providing training on IYCF for health staff and community based workers
Participating in the project, district and commune health staff was trained on infant and young child
feeding. After the training, they provided technical support and support supervision to their villages to
support village community based workers to facilitate infant and young child feeding support group
(IYCFS SG). In addition to IYCF training, they also got training on the integration of severe acute
malnutrition (IMAM) to direct provide treatment for severe acute malnourished children at commune
health centers.
Along with district and commune health staff, community based workers – they are village health
worker, woman union member, village leader participated in IYCF training. They are the facilitators of
the IYCF SG.
(ii)
Interpersonal counseling delivered through an IYCF Support Groups and the use of mass
media and communications channels
To create an open forum for mothers and care givers to exchange and learn new knowledge on IYCF,
114 IYCF SG have been set up and operated from July 2013 across 38 villages in 10 communes. The
operation of those groups attracts around 1000 local people per month. The major objective of the
group is to improve knowledge and practices of mothers and care givers in feeding their children.
Finding from the process evaluation conducted in April 2014 shows positive results. Members of the
groups have better understanding on breastfeeding and complementary feeding than other mothers in
the same communes.
In addition, every year we organized mini events in response to the Breastfeeding week to educate local
community and promote breastfeeding practice.
(iii)
Applying components of the integrated management of acute malnutrition model
Under this activity, all children under five in 10 communes have been screened twice a year, those are
severe acute malnourished would be selected to participate in the programme. As April 2015, more than
400 children were treated. They are mainly come from very poor households.
(iv)
And piloting household nutrition gardens for households with children from 6 – 24 months.
This activity is a new component. It has been implemented since January 2015 with an attempt to
improve food security for children. Mothers were selected from IYCF SG. We provided agriculture
training and other vegetable seeds for those households to set up nutrition gardens. By June 2015, 76
households selected to implement this model.
Objective of the survey
2
Within the project, a quantitative and qualitative survey will be conducted to access the results and impacts
of the project intervention in Thuong Xuan district, Thanh Hoa province with comparison to the baseline
survey results.
Responsibility of the consultant

Study project documents (project proposals, baseline survey report, process evaluation,
project progress reports, MLE system…)
 Develop tools for the survey
 Meeting with project staff to discuss plan for field work, template for the report,…
 Conduct in depth interviews with mothers, health staffs and commune based workers
 Submit all interview notes and transcriptions (if any)
 Data analyzing and writing report (in Vietnamese), and prepare summery presentation of the
report; and writing a manuscript paper (in Vietnamese).
Detail of work plan
No
1
Activity
Working time
3
Review project documents, 01 day
available report and relevant
paper
Developing protocol, survey tool 02 day
and outline of survey report
Training for data collectors
0.5 day
4
5.5 day
2
to conduct quantitative survey
and monitor data collection
process at Thuong Xuan district
5
Data analyzing
6
Writing the narrative report
7
Summarizing the report in
presentation format
8
Writing the manuscript paper
Total working day
Table1: Data collection plan
Content
Description
Remark
Time line tentative
August 3nd 2015
August 4-5nd 2015
August 14th 2015
Including
travel
5 day
2 day
1
August 10 – 14th 2015
September 1- 5nd 2015
September 9 – 12th
2015
2 day
19 day
Total
working
day (day)
In depth interview 02 in depth interview will 0.5
with health staff at be conducted at province
Province level
level.
Location
Time
line
tentative
Thanh Hoa city
August
2015
10th
3
11th
In depth interview 02 in depth interview will 0.5
health
staff
at be conducted at district
district level
level to finding key factor
which effected to project
activities
and
some
challenges.
Thuong
district
Xuan August
2015
In depth interview 06 in depth (02/commune 2
heath
staff
at x 3 commune) will be
commune level
conducted to identify how
And
Group did the project activities
implement at commune
discussion
with
level.
mothers
Xuan Loc, Xuan August 11th –
Le, and Bat Mot 14th 2015
commune
2 group discussions with
mothers and care givers
In depth interview 09 in depth interview with 1.5
commune
base village health worker,
worker
woman union and village
leader will be conducted.
Total working day (not including travel)
Xuan Loc, Xuan August 11th –
Le, and Bat Mot 14th 2015
commune
4.5 day
Expected Deliverables
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Survey protocol/design
The survey tools
In depth interview and group interview transcriptions
Final report (in Vietnamese)
Summery presentation (in Vietnamese and using Powerpoint)
One manuscript paper (in Vietnamese)
Duration: this work request of 19 days (tentatively)
Commissioning Manager: Nguyen Ngoc Thach/Nguyen Van Huan
Consultant’s Qualifications:
-
Having a master degree on public health
Having 5 – 10 years experience with nutrition project
Previous experiences in conducting studies and survey for nutrition projects
Having knowledge and skills working with ethnic minority is an asset
Good skills of analyzing data and writing report
Good skills of writing report
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Programme code: 7040036 Funding Source: 82601312
Terms of payment:
Payment will be made by bank transfer to the consultant after all the expected outputs are
completed, submitted by the consultant and approved by Save the Children. During the process of
implementation, consultant can advance perdiem
5