Women by Women | Yen Duong

Yen Duong is an award-winning Vietnamese photojournalist whose courageous work focuses on untold human stories. Her work has highlighted human trafficking, climate change and life in marginalised communities.

She has been published in Reuters, Bloomberg, the Guardian, the New York Times, and other international news outlets and was the winner of One World Media’s New Voice Award in 2019.

"For so long, we have seen the world through a white man’s lens and photojournalism has focused too much on wars, conflicts, hostility and binary oppositions," she says. "The times are changing."

"From the beginning of the Women by Women project, I had the power to decide and direct everything throughout the creative process which I highly appreciated.

"It may sound like an obvious thing, but for me it means trust and respect for my work."

Women by Women is celebrating the inspiring stories of women in the countries we work in – and the female photographers capturing those stories from behind the lens.

Learn about our work changing the world with women and girls.

_{Thu and Huong are rice farmers, close friends, and members of a village women’s group who have been struggling against the high levels of salty seawater intruding into the freshwater delta and rice fields.

The saltwater has become so severe that the women have had to abandon their rice crops and switch to growing coconut trees and water lilies.

"In recent years, the climate has become more erratic and harsher," Thu says.

"There are many thunderstorms and tornadoes that cause the roofs to blow off. In 2020, saline water came early… the rice was withered and there was no water for crops and fruit trees."}

_{With support from ActionAid, the women now tend to waterlily ponds to earn a living. Waterlilies are easy to grow and help to remove impurities from water, which can then be used for crops, cattle, and poultry.

Members of the women’s group share areas of a pond where they grow waterlilies and harvest them once or twice per week to sell them in the market.}

_{Thu and Huong say the training and support ActionAid has given them has been invaluable, particularly on adapting their farming methods to climate change and working alongside other women to find new ways to earn a sustainable living.}