Grants to USA, Canada, and international IHEs, NGOs, and nonprofit and for-profit organizations for projects that raise awareness about religious freedoms in eligible regions. Applicants are advised that required registrations may take several weeks to complete. Funding is intended for projects that will lead to reforms that will improve religious freedom in Vietnam.

In Vietnam, the constitution states that all individuals have the right to freedom of belief and religion. The law provides for significant government control over religious practices and rights and includes vague provisions that permit restrictions on religious freedom in the stated interest of national security and social unity. The Law on Belief and Religion (LBR) maintains a multistage registration and recognition process for religious groups, without which groups’ activities are strictly limited. Some religious leaders, particularly those representing groups that either do not request or receive official recognition or certificates of registration, report various forms of government harassment – including physical assaults, arrests, prosecutions, monitoring, travel restrictions, and property seizure – and denials or no response to requests for registration and other permissions. Members of some religious groups report that some local and provincial authorities use noncompliance with the required registration procedures to slow, delegitimize, and suppress activities of groups that resist close government management of their leadership, training programs, assemblies, and other activities related to expressions of their faith.

Expected Program Outcomes could include but are not limited to: 

• Community processes or mechanisms address the concerns and interests of community members, in particular those members of minority religions or beliefs, including non-believers.
• Community actors take collective action to promote and protect the freedoms of members of all religions or beliefs, including non-believers.
• Community actors, religious rights activists and community actors, including those from minority religions or beliefs, including non-believers, build working relationships with government stakeholders.
• Government officials, security officials, and law enforcement demonstrate increased understanding of the value and importance of human rights, mutual respect, and inclusion for all, regardless of one’s religion, beliefs or non-belief, or legal registration status.
• Governments are responsive to advocacy to protect freedom of religion or belief, including non-belief.

Program activities could include, but are not limited to: 

• Support concrete activities and cooperation between stakeholder networks (as defined above) to facilitate awareness of religious freedom concerns including registration and related issues (as described above, separately), particularly as they impact members of religious minority communities.
• Strengthen the stakeholder network’s ability to advocate effectively for the equitable and non-discriminatory implementation of national policies, including registration, freedom of assembly, and related civil regulations.
• Support efforts of stakeholder networks to educate local and regional government officials, as well as the public, on the impact  of government officials’ unfair implementation and discriminatory national policies with regard to religion or belief;
• Work to ensure sustainability of the networks so that they are better positioned to continue their joint advocacy in support of religious freedom and non-discriminatory national policies after the period of the project ends.