Since the LHESP started in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, women have been playing a very important role. Some are from Korean or other minorities and they all have made great progress and their knowledge, talents and skills are increasingly being recognized.

Among the selected 8 first tier trainers in Yanbian, four of them are women who have been promoted because of their good performance. Ms. Zhang Xiurong, has been promoted as the Head of AH Station of Longjing, the pilot county; Ms. Geng Yana, (Man nationality) who is Section Chief of the Airport supervision Station of Yanbian Animal Quarantine and Supervision Institute (AQSI), has been selected by the MOA as one of the team members for editing the booklet on Zoonoses Prevention. This is a long project taking quite a few months and requires her to spend a significant amount of time in Beijing; Ms. Zheng Yingmei (Korean), has taken the position of Deputy Director of the Milk Industry Office of Dunhua City this year; and Ms. Shi Hongli, is now the Head of Antu AQSI. In addition, some other lady trainers also have been recognized for their skill and hard work, such as Ms. Jin Lianshu, (Korean), who has been promoted as Deputy Head of the Animal Epidemiology Prevention & Control Center (AEPCC) of Longjing and as member of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee (CPPCC) of Longjing City.

More and more trainers influenced by the LHESP, particularly lady trainers, are becoming the backbone for the staff devoted to scientific extension of animal husbandry in the Yanbian Prefecture.

For example, the “Four Golden Flowers” working at the Animal Epidemic Prevention and Control Center of Yanbian; Han Mingzi (Korean), Jin Meihua (Korean) Qiao Qibo and Zhao Dazhuo (Man), with their good teamwork and their creativity have become very excellent facilitators in training courses, such as the ID readers training held in January this year. Ms. Yuan Li, Head of the Vet Station of Laotougou Township of Longjing has become one of the 3rd tier trainers in the pilot county.

Traditionally, Yanbian has paid great attention to education. A large percentage of the women have good educational background and most of the staff working on animal health graduated from the Agricultural College of Yanbian University. Some of them have attained Master degrees and they all endeavor to take all opportunities to study more updated knowledge related to animal health. They have tried to attend the LHESP training courses whenever possible and are very attentive participants. With a high spirit of dedication to their work, they practiced what they learnt immediately and provided training to others. Ms. Zhao Dazhuo has delivered good training courses about environment protection, trace back system, rabies, etc. Ms. Dong Chunji, who works at the lab of Tumen was a key contributor to the highest achieving superior winning group in the Beijing lab training held by the China AEPCC this year. Ms. Zhang Xiurong delivered training for the on-farm certificate of safe food twice recently and her English has improved much because of her renewed efforts to learn and practice ever since the project started in the pilot city. Recently, Ms. Geng Yana and Ms. Qiao Qipo each received top Champion Awards for the whole Jilin province in two contests on knowledge related to Animal Health.

Because of the importance of computer use in extension and according to the strong requests from participants, the first computer training course which focused on Powerpoint use was held on December 3rd to 4th, 2009. The trainees were directors and deputy directors of the AEPCC of the 8 counties and cities. Four of them were ladies, Cui Shanshu, from Hunchun, Jin Lianshu, from Longjing, Wang Hui, from Dunhua and Dong Chunji, from Tumen, all from ethnic minorities. Once again, they studied hard and learned a lot from the training. They will be helping others to use the tool of Powerpoint to deliver trainings, reports and summaries by giving the same training to others when requested by the AHB of Yanbian Prefecture.

Yanbian women have a tradition in cleanliness and hygiene. The project has emphasized the importance of environment protection in almost all the training courses and now lady participants have improved their awareness and behaviors, and have become outstanding performers in that. They set good examples at trainings by using less paper cups, plastic bags, and they maintain a clean and orderly meeting room. And more importantly, their good behavior is a model that influences children in environment protection. The Gender and Ethnic strategy for LHESP is always integrated in all the activities held in Yanbian. And going forward, more will be done, for example, trainings especially for women farmers will be developed and implemented soon with the main facilitators being the excellent lady trainers from Yanbian that have been participating in the LHESP project.
 

Lab training: lady trainer and trainees	Zhao Dazhuo, Geng Yana, environmental protection training	Zhang Xiurong, head of Longjing animal husbandry station; Yuan Li, head of vet station of Laotougou township

4 golden flowers” of Yanbian AEPCC: Han Mingzi, Zhao Dazhuo, Qiao Qibo, Jin Meihua	Jin Lianshu, deputy director of Longjing AEPCC, member of CPPCC of Longjing city	The 1st powerpoint training 4 lady directors of AEPCC: Cui Shanshu, (Korean) Hunchun, Dong Chunji, (Korean) Tumen, Jin Lianshu,(Korean) Longjing, Wang Hui (Man), Dunhua