IGE Program Officer Hien Vu Participates in Vietnamese Provincial-level Training Seminar

30 November 2009

From 30 October to 1 November, IGE's Vietnam and Laos Program Officer was invited by the Committee for Religious Affairs to attend a three-day provincial level training seminar on the interpretation of religious laws and Protestant administration in Lao Cai province.

The training seminar, facilitated by the Committee for Religious Affairs, gathered 185 local authorities and Protestant congregations' leaders from eight districts of Lao Cai province. Participants discussed the development of Protestantism in Vietnam as well as governance issues for faith communities in the mountainous areas of the Northwest provinces and villages of Lao Cai province.

The training curriculum drew from Vietnam's various legal documents on belief and religion, including the Ordinance on Belief and Religion, the Government Decree on guidance for implementation of a number of articles of the Ordinance on Belief and Religion, and the Instruction of the Prime Minister on some tasks regarding Protestantism.  The primary goal of the training seminar was to provide guidance for Protestant groups to register religious activities with their local authorities. Attendance at the seminar provided a unique opportunity for IGE to directly engage in the training seminars that we will actively support during the next year.

Last updated 05 December 2009