ChildFund Laos has been working in Nonghet district in Xieng Khouang province since 2010. Located in northern Laos, near the Vietnamese border, the district is considered one of the poorest in Laos. The majority of the population here is H’mong, an ethnic minority group in Laos often excluded from development opportunities.
To help improve access to education for children and youth in Nonghet, ChildFund Laos is working in partnership with local government and communities to provide a range of quality, locally-appropriate education opportunities.
Over the past financial year, more than 6,200 people benefitted from ChildFund Laos’ Education for All program. Three primary schools and one early childhood development centre have been constructed and provided with educational equipment and resources. 17 long-term, teacher training scholarships were provided, and teachers from 12 schools also participated in two government-standard education training courses.
Community members are asked to contribute labour and materials towards the construction of schools in their villages to foster local ownership of the project. Since 2012, ChildFund Laos has supported the construction of primary schools in all 12 of our partner communities in Nonghet.
We had been in Cambodia for over a week cycling around the Angkor temples, hiking through Cambodia’s countryside and taking in the Mekong by sunset, but it was this day that everyone was most looking forward to. Today was the day we were to visit three schools and meet some of the children who now have access to clean water and proper sanitation facilities because of our support.
Our destination, Damrei Phong commune was just 32km from where we were staying in Kratie Town. Yet the mountainous topography of the area, the poor road conditions and getting bogged meant it took us almost two hours to reach the community.
When we finally arrived at the first school in Damrei Phong we were welcomed by the school committee, teachers and the school principal. After a brief introduction we went to the school library which was built with ChildFund’s support and filled with books for the students to read and study. This is where we got to meet some of the students and joined in their craft activities. They helped us make beautiful origami and we helped them make some very basic paper planes!
We also played a couple of Cambodian games – the slide game and the do-the-opposite game. The children made up the rule that if you lost you had to sing and dance in front of everyone. So, as you can imagine without understanding all of the rules, our team spent a lot of time singing and dancing to the utter enjoyment of all the kids.
The children at this school were quite shy at first but it wasn’t long before they warmed up to this silly group of Aussies! The students also showed us how to wash our hands. They did a great job, making sure to wash between their fingers and under their fingernails. It was great to see the hand-washing facility that we had funded was being used so well.
