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ePaper created 2015-12-01, 11:33:23 | version 1.43.00
COMMITMENT 35akzente 3/15 > Contact Reinhild Renée Ernst > reinhild.ernst@giz.de GOOD PROSPECTS FOR EMPLOYMENT Project: Training nurses from Viet Nam to become geriatric nurses in Germany Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) Lead executing agency: Vietnamese Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Term: 2012 to 2016 As part of a pilot project initiated in autumn 2013, a group of 100 young people from Viet Nam are training to be care assistants for the elderly. After completing a state- funded language course at the Goethe-Institut in Hanoi, participants receive training at care homes in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin and Lower Saxony. Additional language courses and intercultural programmes help them adjust to their new lives. Regional coordinators working in the same field and Vietnamese-speaking mentors provide support to the trainees and their practice partners. This successful pilot project continued in August 2015, when 100 new trainees started their training in Germany, having completed a one-year German course. Viet Nam has a very young population and falls a long way short of employing its en- tire potential workforce in its labour market. For this reason, Viet Nam officially pro- motes foreign employment for its citizens. Many young people are keen to take up training and a subsequent period of employment in Germany. This project uses exist- ing connections with Vietnamese administrations. Furthermore, it creates attractive openings for investment and cooperation for German businesses. Trainees are selected in collaboration with the Vietnamese Ministry of Labour and the International Place- ment Services (ZAV) of the German Federal Employment Agency. www.giz.de/en/worldwide/18715.html tly. Then she kneels down to be at eye level with the elderly lady. When she starts to sing, Hildegard S. immediately joins in: ‘Kein schöner Land in dieser Zeit…’ It’s a song Ngan learned at her vocational training college. Along with an assortment of idioms and expressions for memory training. ‘At night…,’ the Vietnamese begins, ‘…all cats are grey,’ responds Hildegard S. Ngan loves combing the ladies’ hair, painting their nails and helping them put on eye makeup and lipstick. Then they giggle like best friends. But there is little time for more than that, since the working day is structured with metronomic precision. Once breakfast is served, her first task is to feed and wash the bedridden residents and change their bed pads with the help of a colleague. Next, she sorts out the pills and medicines. Then it’s time to prepare lunch. Ngan ties a bow in her white plastic apron and serves up the soup: soup spoons to the left, mugs to the right. She looks tired. Almost all participants are keen to stay in Germany So how does she spend her time when she gets home around 3:30 pm? ‘I put my feet up,’ she says without hesitation. She shares a three-room apartment with the three other Vietnamese nurses undergoing training at the Leonhard Henninger Haus care home. There they listen to music, play games on their mobile phones and skype with their families back in Viet Nam. And in the even- ing they cook together: rice dishes and ‘pho’, the traditional Vietnamese noodle soup. Last year they all travelled to Paris to visit a Viet- namese friend. It was a rare luxury, since oth- erwise the young women save up what they can to support their families back home. ‘Their families have high expectations of them,’ explains care home manager Chylek. So the trainees have a good sense of discipline and hard work. ‘They even wanted to discuss the basics of palliative care with me during our Christmas party.’ So far, none of the 100 participants has returned home early, almost all of them are keen to stay. Ngan too. Like the others, if she passes her exams she is assured of a job. Looking to the future, she says: ‘If I start a family here, my children will have better opportunities.’ And for that, she is prepared to put up with the occasional feeling of homesickness. By the time the second group of partic- ipants from Viet Nam arrived in August, weaknesses in the first training course had been addressed. The newcomers now bene- fited from a whole year of German tuition. Chylek is enthusiastic about the continua- tion of the project: ‘I’m taking another four trainees.’ He hopes to set up tandem train- ing, pairing new arrivals with the pioneers from the first group. For Ngan it will be an acknowledgment of how far she has come.