Mastering digital skills has helped Ms. Ha Thi Thao manage the cotton weaving cooperative more effectively.

Actively acquire new knowledge.

Despite it being a weekday, the Van Ho hot spring in Chieng Yen commune, Son La province, was still bustling with visitors. Not only Vietnamese tourists from various locations, but also a large number of foreign visitors from Israel, Spain, France, and other countries came to enjoy the pristine scenery and the natural hot springs flowing from deep within the earth.

Interestingly, the Van Ho hot spring is a tourist destination managed by the Tat Nang Tourism and Agriculture Cooperative. The cooperative operates on a model combining agricultural production and tourism services, and consists of 14 members, all women from Phu Mau village, Chieng Yen commune.

The cooperative received support from the Australian Government's Project on Promoting Gender Equality through Enhancing the Economic Efficiency of Agricultural Production and Tourism Development (GREAT) in digital transformation and destination management. Thanks to this, members became familiar with and proactively developed ideas for promoting tourist destinations on social media, learned how to operate and conduct business through computer software systems, and how to divide tasks according to members' capabilities. “For people who were only used to farming, running a cooperative like this was a long process. We had to learn a lot. The project supported us in using computers, managing on the system, issuing electronic invoices, writing promotional content for the tourist destination, and even using artificial intelligence (AI) to write positive content. Without the support of technology, we would have faced many difficulties,” recounted Ms. Ngan Thi Nga, Director of the cooperative.

Besides exploiting the potential of the hot springs, tourism services here also help local people sell clean agricultural products and local specialties. In particular, the development of tourism creates opportunities for women to work together to revive traditional brocade weaving, and the traditional songs and dances of the Thai people, on the one hand to serve tourists, and on the other hand to preserve and pass on the cultural identity of the community for generations.

Proactively change your mindset.

Ha Thi Thao, a woman from the 90s generation, recalls that according to traditional customs, Thai girls, when getting married, would bring dowry consisting of hand-woven and hand-sewn fabrics, blankets, and pillows. Her grandmothers and mothers were all skilled weavers, making everything for themselves and their families, from scarves and shirts to pillows, mattresses, and blankets. But in Thao's generation, modern life and diverse consumer needs have changed many requirements for "dowry." Now, most people of her generation and younger don't know how to weave; they choose to order or buy ready-made products if they want traditional items. From this observation, Thao thought about reviving her ethnic group's weaving craft by learning from the elders. She and her husband decided to establish a cotton weaving cooperative in Khao village, Tuong Ha commune, Son La province.

Ha Thi Thao also received support from the GREAT Project on digital technology skills and women's management and leadership. Through online communication training programs, she learned how to promote the cooperative's textile products, leading to more stable orders. "Now, besides their income from farming, the women earn a few million dong each month from weaving brocade. Everyone is happy because they earn extra money and preserve their traditional craft," she shared.

In an exchange, Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Duy Thieu, from the Vietnam Association of Ethnology and Anthropology, also affirmed that in exploiting traditional cultural values ​​to serve the goal of local economic development, the principle of preservation must be prioritized, not sacrificing culture for short-term gains, ensuring sustainability and long-term benefits for the community. He also proposed several solutions, such as building a sustainable tourism development strategy; controlling the scale of tourism; investing in responsible community tourism; training local people to participate in tourism business and improve service quality while preserving cultural identity; and strengthening the application of technology in heritage management and promotion...

It can be said that the thinking and actions of Ngan Thi Nga, Ha Thi Thao, and Luu Xuan Hong are vivid evidence of progress in the awareness of cultural identity values ​​among young people in particular, and among the people of the Northwest highlands in general. The cultural and geographical values ​​of their homeland are an inexhaustible resource for present and future generations to enrich their lives, if they know how to exploit them properly.

Text and photos: Tuyet Loan