Nguyen Thi Lan Anh

As the founder and director of the Action to the Community Development Institute in Vietnam, Nguyen Lan Ahn is a tireless advocate dedicated to empowering and including people with disabilities in all areas of life, particularly those impacted by poverty.

Among her many contributions, Lan Anh was a strong advocate behind Vietnam’s successful ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2014. Lan Anh led her organization in successfully advocating for sign language translation to be provided not only on late-night television programs, but in the official news hour of the state television channel during the COVID-19 pandemic. She pushed for improved access policies, such as the Vietnam standard criteria (VN10:2014), universal design in transportation (June 2020), and the amended Labor Code.

Since 2013, Ms. Lan Anh’s legal clinic has been providing free legal counseling services on disability issues. Over the last five years, legal counseling and information services have reached 29,000 people, of which 18,000 are people with disabilities and their family members.