According to the Vietnam General Statistics Office, 15% of the population have a disability. Among them, less than 20% have a secondary or high school degree and less than 1% have studied or graduated from a college or university (MOLISA 2006). Although quite capable of learning, some people with disability (PWD) are prevented from obtaining an education due to poverty, attitudinal or physical barriers in the community, barriers within the school and, sometimes, even from within their own families.

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HCM CITY — When specialists from Save the Children originally quizzed street children questions about reproductive health, only 30 per cent of them came close to the correct answers.

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In response to a recent spate of arrests of deaf people in HCM City, the Disability Resource and Development (DRD) held a special seminar on Sunday to explore ways to educate the deaf about the law.

Lawyers and social workers recommended that agencies expand the existing sign language for the deaf to include signs about the law and develop educational aids such as picture books, as many of the city's deaf are also illiterate.

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The Disability Resource and Development (DRD) group was an organisation founded in 2005 under the sponsorship of the Vietnam Ford Fund and supported by the Sociology Department of Ho Chi Minh City Open University with the aim of promoting a positive image for people with disabilities in society.

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Judith Heumann, an international leader in the disability rights movement and a governmental representative to the USICD Board of Directors, will be joining the U.S. Department of State as their Special Advisor for International Disability Rights. This position was announced last summer, when President Obama and Secretary Clinton declared that the United States would sign the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Heumann resigned her position as Director of the Department on Disability Services for the District of Columbia, and will assume her new position at the Department of State on June 7, 2010.

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On January, 26th 2010, DRD Employment Team held the 2nd meeting of the Employment Advisory Group (EAG). The main objective of the EAGis to cooperate with a range of organizations of and for disabled people andnon-government organizations who are working in the field of promoting employment for PWD and to promote the employment service that DRD has made in order to meet the demands of development of society.

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Employment and getting a job, particularly to disabled students is often an obsessive fear.

(DRD) organized training courses on "job search skills" for 25 disabled students of Vocational College of Technology in the HCM City.

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On the morning of April 1, at “Đời Rất Đẹp” (life is Beautiful) clubhouse in District 10,HCMC, a group of 18 students from Special Education Department of HCMC University of Pedagogy, came with their teacher, Ms My Dung visited and learnt about DRD activities.

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On May 19, 2010, the last day of the 66th Commission session, ESCAP adopted the resolution, sponsored by 11 countries in the Asia Pacific Region that the High Level intergovernmental Meeting on the final review of Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons 2003-2012 will be held in the Republic of Korea in 2012. HLM will evaluate what the AP Region has achieved and what gaps are remained during the 2nd decade, which is expected to contain ways forward post 2012, in ensuring that persons with disabilities exercise and enjoy their rights in all aspects of their lives. RI World Congress and APDF General Assembly will be held in conjunction with the ESCAP HLM.

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The Convention on Cluster Munitions was signed by 94 countries at the Oslo signing Conference in December 2008, and will enter into force on 1 August 2010, after 30 states ratified it by 16 February 2010. The CMC urges as many states as possible to get in on the ground floor of the Convention by signing or ratifying this year - there will never be a better time to join the treaty. Currently, there is a countdown week of action prior to the first meeting have been launched out by the CMC. It is carried out in Viet Nam also. These activities are to urge Viet Nam Government to participate into the convention for protecting people from the cluster munitions for their better life.

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