From donating 300 PPE masks to hospitals to A bridge of help connecting 170 smiling faces these successful Black Belt campaigns have inspired our Partner & Distributor communities across the globe.

Continuing the momentum, here we are with yet another philanthropic initiative-"Black Belt Certification for a Reason"-a one-of-a-kind campaign that addresses not only Cisco Vietnam's business goals but also caters to the essence of giving back to society.

In April 2023, the Cisco Vietnam DPSE team collaborated with distributors M.Tech, Synnex, and TechData, along with Cisco Black Belt to launch the "Black Belt Certification for a Reason" campaign. Eleven instructor-led sessions were conducted by DPSEs across three different locations within Vietnam, with the goal of training Partner engineers across Cisco technologies by leveraging the Cisco Black Belt learning plans. To conclude the campaign with a giving back activity, an innovative crowd funding model was experimented with to help the remote Aur Lang village.

Thanks to the 65 participants and charitable contributions of our participating distributors, "Black Belt Certification for a Reason" not only resulted in 202 new Black Belt certifications, but 22 million VND ($950 USD) being raised. The team's target goal for new certifications was 120 and funds raised was$600 USD, making the campaign a success from a business perspective. But what made the campaign truly successful was what the team was able to do with the funds that were raised.

The DPSE Vietnam team chose to focus their give-back efforts on the Aur Lang village. The village has 23 families with a total population of about 100 people, including around 45 school-age children. Located deep in the jungle of the Tay Giang Mountains, from National Highway 14 it takes about 6 hours to walk to the village, going through 14km of trails with 8 hills and more than 10 streams and can only be accessed by foot. Due to geographical distance, the people of Aur Lang village mainly live on self-sufficiency, grow upland rice, fish in streams, and raise a few wild boars. Sometimes they get wild honey and Ganoderma mushrooms and bring them down to the town Prao, which is about 25km from the village, to exchange for money or necessary food. People here are lacking in electricity, health care, education (the school is too far away from the village, so the children must stay away from their parents, going to the town to stay and coming back to their home during the summer) and even communication (no cellphone signal).

The DPSE Vietnam team used the funds donated by the participating distributors to buy vegetable seeds; foot fungus medicine for people working in the fields; deworming medicine for children; comic books; some sweets; clothes; and some sport equipment such as footballs, volleyballs, and badminton rackets for the children to have fun in the summer. Each household was also supported with cash (500k VND/household) so that they can actively buy some breeding stock to grow them up, or spend on necessary expenses for their family. In addition to the above gifts, the team also gave the village a small festival with grilled pork and a pot of pork porridge stewed with pumpkin.

"The villagers are very happy and excited when they got the support from Cisco. Vegetable seeds, medicine are things that the villagers desperately need. The representative of the village will support the people to buy breeding stock to improve their lives. The villagers would like to sincerely thank the company, the implementation team, and wish the company more success, to help more communities like our village."

-Mr. A Ting Del, head of the village, represented the villagers to express his emotion and gratitude to the team and Cisco Vietnam

The three-day weekend in the Aur Lang village was a memorable experience for the team. Staying away from computers, phones, social networks, playing with the children, cooking with the villagers, bringing joy to the people-we felt energized to return to our busy lives in the city.

There is nothing better for us as an organization to help our ecosystem Partners in their business while giving back to society which makes the Black Belt for a Reason/Cause initiative a true Win-Win!

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