On the evening of the last day of every month, Mong ethnic minorities in the Bac Yen district, Son La Province gather around their television sets to see something they’ve never seen before.

The novel programme is the news which, for the first time last May, is being broadcasted in their own language. The news programme has helped inform locals that don’t know the Vietnamese national language what’s going on in their region. Put together by the local television-radio station in Bac Yen District, the programme is followed by the national news.

Remote hamlets that don’t receive the station’s signal still have an opportunity to catch the news via DVD. The district spent 25 million VND to record the programmes on DVD and send them to 86 out of 149 Mong hamlets, allowing each hamlet to hold a monthly viewing.

“It’s the first television programme in the Mong language of the Son La Province devoted to Mong inhabitants and those who speak the Mong language,” said Nguyen Dang Dung, chief of the Bac Yen Television-Radio Station.

“We first nurtured the idea of setting up this programme a long time ago. Every time we visited the Mong hamlets to get information for our programmes, I and other provincial and district authorities recognized that copied CDs and DVDs from Thailand, Laos, and the US have invaded those hamlets. It’s dangerous for them to know about foreign cultures and ignore their own.”

Dung also noted that radio programmes in the region were still very limited. “Only three programmes, all in the national language, are broadcasted weekly and repeated. The radio programme in the Mong language is only broadcasted once a week, not satisfying inhabitants’ demands.”

The new 30-minute news bulletin is a commentary on life, society, culture and politics, It informs the audience on the country’s legal documents, family planning, education, ban on opium plantations and illegal drugs and fights against epidemic diseases in animals. The programme aims to help the Mong understand the Party and State’s policies and local authorities’ roles.

Between the news segments, the show also features cultural elements with musical performances by Mong art troupes.

“We received many letters from Mong inhabitants asking for more musical programmes, mostly because they want to know how the girls and boys they meet in real life look like on television,” Dung said.

Dung regrets that the programme is limited in news because of the lack of reporters.

According to Dang Hung, chairman of the People’s Committee of Bac Yen District, the Mong make up more than 50 percent of the district’s population. The region houses 149 Mong hamlets, of which many are 100 percent Mong. (VNS)