Since 2010, ChildFund Laos has been implementing projects in Nonghet district, Xieng Khouang province in northern Laos. ChildFund now works in partnership with 27 communities across a range of projects including education, health, livelihoods and child protection.
Community sponsorship is helping to connect our supporters in Australia with the communities they are supporting in Nonghet. As ChildFund Laos` communications manager I get the opportunity to be part of this program. So I was excited to welcome our first ever Community sponsorship visitors to show them how their support is making a real impact in my country.
Bonnie and James (pictured above, right) are a couple from the Southern Highlands in New South Wales, Australia. Bonnie works in childcare and her partner, James, is a plumber, so they both had very interesting questions about our education and water and sanitation work particularly.
My colleagues and I met Bonnie and James in Phonsavanh, the capital of Xieng Khouang province on 18 February. They joined us in a van heading to Nonghet. The weather was warm, but it started to rain and even hailed heavily in the evening. Nonghet is situated in the mountains near the Vietnamese border so around this time of year it can be very cold. Luckily by morning, the day that we planned to visit a village and local school, the weather had improved.
Laos is the most bombed country per capita in the world. More than 270 million cluster munitions were dropped on Laos during the Vietnam War. Yet 30 per cent of all bombs failed to detonate and remain live today. Every year, unexploded bombs (UXOs) in Laos still claim dozes of lives, many of whom are children.
“I find new bombs in this land every year. I am afraid young children who don’t know the danger [of the UXOs] will dig the land and touch them when playing in the fields. I am also afraid when slashing the fields because bombs can be everywhere,” says Mai, a resident of a small rural village in Nonghet. The mother-of-two has been working on her plot of land for more than 20 years despite the threat of UXOs.
ChildFund Laos has been working in Nonghet district in rural northern Laos since 2010. Due to the district’s close proximity to the Vietnamese border, it was heavily bombed during the war. It is this presence of UXOs that has slowed development in Nonghet. Before new schools can be built, wells dug or potentially good farming land used, land must be cleared of bombs.
For Mai’s village the scars of a UXO accident remain fresh. Two children were killed and three others from the same family severely injured whilst farming their plot of land – the main livelihood of families in the village.
Twelve-year-old No, who lives in the same village and helps her parents grow corn on their land, says: “I used to see bombs when using a shovel to dig the land. I can’t remember how many times. I feel afraid because there are many bombs and it is not safe. I am afraid for my family when they work in the fields.”
