PROFILE: DNA
Australia and Vietnam’s horticulture growth opportunity
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By Belinda Tardini and Don Thomson
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If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.
Vietnam is one of the rising stars for Australian horticulture exports. In 2022–23, horticultural exports to Vietnam grew by $26.5 million, up 15.8 per cent on the previous year, to $193.9 million. It elevated Vietnam from third to second largest export market for Australia’s horticulture producers. Don Thomson, the Director of Gardenridge, was touring the south of Vietnam in 2017, exploring the growing horticulture potential in this region. On this trip, Don became acutely aware of the plight of many Vietnamese people, particularly in rural areas where they live in extreme poverty. The inequality and disadvantage existing in parts of Vietnam is largely attributed to disparity in education which in turn impacts on employment prospects. Don wanted to find a way to create change in a meaningful way and he believed education held the key. With his particular interest in horticulture and noting that horticulture training was virtually absent in Vietnam, Don saw an opportunity to create a horticulture education and training program that could make a tangible difference to the disadvantaged people living in the Mekong region of Vietnam, as well as elevating the standard of horticulture and shoring up an emerging trade relationship. Once back in Melbourne, Don put his ideas into action, and Vocational Training Southeast Asia was born.
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GROUNDSWELL DECEMBER 2023
The Project
Don Thomson founded Vocational Training Southeast Asia (VTSEA) in 2018, a not-for-profit charity foundation that brokers support from governments, educators, students, and the private sector, to deliver workplace-based occupational training activities to disadvantaged students and to seek out employment opportunities for these students. For this project, VTSEA is working with DNA Training Solutions, the Hau Giang Provincial Centre for Vocational Training and Job Promotion, and Activity International, to deliver a horticulture course equivalent to the Australian Certificate II to 30 disadvantaged students living in Hau Giang, and then to find them employment. The course is expected to take 18 months, with the first year dedicated to online horticulture training being taught delivered to a dedicated classroom in Hau Giang province from Australia via Skype. The teachers will visit Hau Giang in the middle of the first year to assess the students’ emerging horticulture skills. The students will come to Australia for three months at the conclusion of the 12 months’ theory, to work within Australian horticulture-based businesses. Their horticulture skills will be assessed at this time.
