HANOI, March 2007 - “We used to dump agricultural and animal waste in dirty and unhygienic sites around our residential areas, polluting the surrounding environment,” Nguyen The Hiep, a farmer in Gia Lam district, north of Hanoi explains. Now, “thanks to a model developed by the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Development Center of the Hanoi Agriculture University, the waste is turned into compost and goes back to feed our fields while our residential areas are clean and beautiful,” Hiep said, pointing to the compost facility nearby.  |  |  | | Bags of clean compost, made from waste, which will later be used to feed the farms. |
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The model was piloted thanks to award money from the Vietnam Innovation Day 2005, and it has now been so successful that the Center receives orders from a dozen provinces to apply it in their localities. According to Professor Doctor Dao Chau Thu, Vice Director of the Center, “the Center now receives additional funding from the Italian government, from WHO and from the Vietnamese government to replicate the model.” “We now sell it to various companies in different regions. The good thing is that our scientific research has been turned into something that helps the community”, Thu said with a smile. | |  | | Green and clean fields are the result of Professor Thu’s initiatives. |
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There are abundant examples of community initiatives that, without the Vietnam Innovation Day awards, would just stay within that community. “We had been taking care of some children with disabilities and victims of Agent Orange, but as a group of students our resources were very limited,” said Dao Minh Phuong, a winner of the Vietnam Innovation Day 2006 under the theme “Disadvantaged Children and Youth.” The award helped Phuong and her friends build a facility to accommodate 23 disadvantaged children and provide them with vocational training. Now, they even receive orders for some handmade products from abroad. | |  | | Handmade souvenir shops like this one feature the work of children with disabilities. |
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The children now teach one another to earn a living, and their lives are more meaningful than ever. They can also go to nearby schools like Kim Lien Primary School in Hanoi, which has used the award money to build access roads for children with disabilities. Since its inception in 2003, the Vietnam Innovation Day, initiated by the World Bank in Vietnam, has granted awards to 146 innovative community projects worth a total of US$1.3 million. The program inspired partnerships and funding from many government agencies, as well as development and business partners. Its themes have included Life Safety (2003), Fighting HIV/AIDS (2004), Environmental Action (2005), Disadvantaged Children and Youth (2006) and Traffic Safety this year. Each of them is designed to tackle pressing societal issues during the process of development. Many ideas have been turned into business models that sustain and benefit society. “Our school is the first school in Hanoi to build access paths for children with disabilities thanks to funding from the Vietnam Innovation Day. Now other people are benefiting from it, such as the local association for people with disabilities, which often use our facilities for their meetings,” said Nguyen Van Long, Vice Principal of Kim Lien Primary School. “This (Innovation Day) program has brought about equal opportunities for all,” Mr. Long concludes. | 
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