In April, ChildFund Australia Global Programs Director, Sarah Hunt, travelled to the ChildFund in Laos Country Office for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Here Sarah was able to visit a health and nutrition project, to understand the impacts of the program and speak to those who have been involved in the project. She also spent time with the ChildFund in Laos team, planning future activities.
We spoke with Sarah to hear about her experience visiting Laos:
How do your days usually start? Tell us a bit about how you get ready for a day in the field and how you get there.
Before I arrived, the ChildFund in Laos Operations Officer, Boua, helped me find an apartment that was about a 30-minute walk from the office and near the Mekong River.
April is one of the hottest times of year in Vientiane, so I would usually try and leave for the office around 7.30am before it got too warm.
The way Vientiane is set up meant there are lots of little and interconnecting streets and it took me a couple of weeks to find my preferred route. I got to know a few ‘regulars’ along the way as well as the local shops that sold cold and refreshing cans of Coke Zero!
Where in Laos did you visit on this trip?
I spent most of my time in Vientiane working from the ChildFund in Laos Country Office. I did manage a 48-hour trip to Huaphanh Province to visit a few projects. it is a beautiful, mountainous, and much cooler, part of the country!
You visited a health program while in Laos. What is this program, when did it start and where is it at now?
The project is part of an EU funded initiative, led by Save the Children and implemented in partnership between Save, Care, Comité de Coopération avec le Laos and ChildFund.
The aim of the Sustainable Change Achieved through Linking Improved Nutrition and Governance (SCALING)project is to improve food and nutrition security among rural households and create sustainable agricultural wealth at the village and household level, as well as to improve nutritional status of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women, and children under 5 years old in project districts.
This project is drawing to a close and will formally end in June 2022.
You met a few of the women who are part of this program. Tell us about that? What did they have to say about their involvement in the program?
One of the successes of the project has been the establishment of local women-led village savings and loans groups. Recognising that in remote and rural areas, access to formal banking and loan opportunities are rare, these groups come together on a regular basis and contribute money each meeting that can be accessed as a loan by different members.
Different members have used these funds for things such as contributing to school fees, meeting unexpected medical expenses and investment in livelihood opportunities. In addition to being a practical way for women to access credit, that they are groups managed by and for women, has also helped address issues of gender inequality. For example, women are increasingly recognised and respected in terms of economic decision-making within the household.
Another important element of the project was the training of Community Facilitators and Home Visit volunteers. The volunteers were each responsible for about 10-15 households, conducting home monitoring visits when women were pregnant and visiting new mothers.
These visits were an opportunity to provide information, advice, and support to expecting and new mothers, including the provision of food supplements and safety and hygiene related interventions.
What is next for the SCALING project?
With the SCALING project coming to an end, ChildFund, signed a new agreement that will allow us to expand our SCALING activities into new areas.
A new project, Integrated Nutrition for Growth (IN4G) will take our key learnings from the SCALING project and implement them, working in partnership with local organisations.
IN4G is funded by the Australian Government (DFAT) via the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP) and will run until June 2024.
What is your hope for these projects?
When we evaluated the SCALING project, we found some promising impacts. The hope is that the next program, the IN4G project, will be able to achieve similar results. I am hoping that we will be able to reduce stunting, improve sanitation, increase the number of women giving birth in health facilities and improve child nutrition in the regions ChildFund is working in.
We’re also hoping that through this project, we’ll be able to strengthen our collaborative processes and partnerships with local government actors.
What was your favourite part about your trip to Laos?
The food was a highlight for me. Although I didn’t use quite as much chilli on my food as my colleagues. I found some local noodle places in Xam Neua, the capital of Huaphanh, that become favourites.
I was also there during the Laos New Year celebrations. While public celebrations were restricted because of COVID-19, we were still able to celebrate in the office. This included a traditional, moving Buddhist ceremony in the office, followed by the team hosting a fun lunch and series of games.
How do you like to wind down from your day?
The walk home from the office was always a nice way to finish up the working day. There was always so much colour, cheer, sounds and delicious smells from the street-food to observe.
At the end of 2021, a Category 5 typhoon hit the Philippine archipelago, leaving hundreds dead, 1.7 million houses damaged or destroyed, and severely affecting up to 9.9 million people. During the aftermath, an all-women crew of ChildFund Sport for Development rugby coaches and supporters came together to respond to the needs of those who were most impacted by the typhoon.
On the night of 16 December, Angel Gelisanga crouched in the dark with her family at their home in Talisay, a city north of Negros island in the Philippines. They listened as the winds roared violently, threatening to rip off their roof. They were in the path of the strongest typhoon to hit the country in 2021.
“Water started coming into our home, then the electricity went out. All we could hear were the sounds of the wind, and objects being blown away,” said Angel, a former Pass it Back coach and a member of the Negros Island Rugby club. “We wanted to check in with our neighbours to know if they were all right, but there was no way to reach them. The phone signal was out.”
Typhoon Rai (locally known as Odette) pummelled the country, bringing with it torrential rains, landslides, storm surges, and winds of up to 195 km/h. The typhoon went from category one to five in a single day, giving people little to no time to prepare.
“We didn’t know that the typhoon was going to be that strong,” Angel recalled. “We were so scared that we didn’t get to sleep that night. It was impossible.”
The next day, they saw the destruction the typhoon left behind. Houses were decimated, trees uprooted and electricity posts toppled. The typhoon wrought havoc in five other provinces in the Visayas region, as well as in the provinces of Surigao del Norte and Dinagat Islands in Mindanao, and in the island of Palawan in Luzon. An estimated 9.9 million people were severely affected.
Apart from the destruction, the typhoon also left survivors seeking clean drinking water. According to Angel, the supply station in their area could only provide two jugs per household. Without electricity, the supplier couldn’t produce more drinking water. Then, there was a panic to get food.
“My family was able to stock up on food, but there were people worried about food supplies running out, so hoards of people went to the stores and then panic buying ensued,” said Angel.
“I consider my family lucky because we weren’t hit as hard as other families, and we had enough food,” Angel added. “But being cut off from the rest of the country because phone signals were out was worrisome. Do people outside our island know about the situation here? Will the people here be able to get help?”
The chat message that sparked the typhoon response
Miles away from the typhoon-affected region, the phones of Philippine Rugby Football Union’s (PRFU) members and its networks began ringing. In a WhatsApp group chat, PRFU Rugby Development Manager Angella “Acee” Camille San Juan, and Administration Head Lorie Baclagon, are checking in on each other and other union members.
“We were worried because we had clubs, players, and Development Officers in the affected areas. What was even more worrisome was we could not get in touch with them because the phone lines there got cut off,” said Lorie. “Our boss Jake [Letts, PRFU CEO] said we should do something for our rugby family affected by the typhoon.”
Then the photos of the aftermath of the typhoon started coming in. Back in Negros, Angel found an area where she could get a phone signal and then she started sending the photos to the group chat.
“Right then and there, the women in the group decided that it was time to start a fundraising campaign,” said Lorie. “We started putting together posters and uploaded them on our social media channels.”
The ChildFund Rugby team were among those who saw the call for help and immediately got in touch with Acee.
“We were so happy when ChildFund Rugby called and said they have funds available for relief operations,” said Lorie.
With donations coming in, it was time to get to work.
Rugby solidarity in the aftermath
“It was impressive to witness PRFU’s agility to use their sports networks to effectively deliver humanitarian support, which is important especially for a country that gets visited by at least 20 typhoons a year. And ChildFund Rugby was proud to be able to support,” said Thu Le, Asia Program Coordinator for ChildFund Rugby.
Organising a typhoon response amidst a pandemic and a Christmas break — when banks and many of the suppliers’ stores were closed — was no easy feat.
“We came across so many roadblocks, initially,” Lorie said. “First, we couldn’t easily get access to the funds. Because of the holiday break, financial books were closed. And then, Acee and I got sick with COVID-19. But we had to keep pushing because people in the affected region needed support.”
Lorie and Acee coordinated remotely with Angel and while waiting to get access to funds, they spent their time planning, scouting for suppliers, and assessing the needs on the ground.
In Negros, Angel started rallying her all-woman coach team who would help her prepare hundreds of aid packages, get trucks to transport them, and then eventually deliver them to each household.
Angel and her team focussed on households that were hit the hardest, as well as households that may not be easily reached by humanitarian responders. This meant traversing rough and sometimes dangerous terrain.
There are families living in the mountains, and since they are in hard-to-reach areas, they often receive aid last, and the least,” said Angel. “We had to prioritise them, even if it meant travelling up to three hours up the mountains.”
Meanwhile in the province of Cebu, Rugby Development Officers Maggie Royo and Madille Salinas were also closely coordinating with Lorie and Acee. The two women were typhoon survivors themselves but, like Angel, they were compelled to put boots on the ground to respond to the needs of the rugby community in Cebu affected by the typhoon.
As a result of all the women’s hard work — in Negros, Cebu, and in the country’s capital — 500 families in need of aid received the packages.
“It was one big rugby family applying rugby and Filipino values of passion, compassion, and solidarity,” said Angel.
“For Angel, it was also the rugby value of integrity,” Lorie added. “From Negros, she had to manage a large amount of money, account for every centavo spent, and make sure that all of the funds went to the needs of the families affected.”
The efforts of PRFU and its rugby networks displayed how sports clubs, bodies, and unions are no longer only sports-focussed institutions, but organisations with social responsibilities. Aside from playing an active role in advancing women’s leadership in their communities, training youth leaders, and recently, responding to the challenges faced by young people resulting from COVID-19, in this case they also responded to the needs of people affected by a crisis.
“We have seen that sport can not only be a powerful vehicle for change in communities, the networks that build up around sport, can be activated in times of crisis” said ChildFund Rugby Director, Chris Mastaglio. “Hopefully, in a world impacted by climate change, support can be made available for sports and their networks to be ready to support communities in times of crisis.”
The PRFU is the official governing body of the sport of Rugby Union in the Philippines. The PRFU was founded in 1998 and was granted full World Rugby membership in 2008. Philippine Rugby is a non-profit national sports association registered with SEC focused on growing and developing the sport of Rugby Union in the Philippines. The PRFU board consists of seven board members and a full time staff of four full time employees and consultants along with a number of regional Development Officers/Coaches located all over the country. The PRFU and its Development Officers provide free training in contact rugby for schools, institutions, clubs and local foundations.
The PRFU are registered accredited members of both World Rugby and Asia Rugby as well as being recognised by the Philippine Olympic Committee and Philippine Sports Commission.
ChildFund Rugby
ChildFund Rugby’s partnerships provide children and young people with opportunities to play, learn, and lead.
Through integrated rugby and life skills learning, young people from vulnerable communities are equipped to overcome challenges, inspire positive social change, and take active leadership roles within their communities.
All partnerships contribute to building an equitable and inclusive future, where children are safe from violence — reflecting targets within the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
ChildFund Rugby is led by ChildFund Australia, an independent international development organisation that works to reduce poverty for children in developing communities and a member of the ChildFund Alliance – a global network of 12 organisations which assists almost 23 million children and their families in 70 countries.
