Another Successful Project Done!

We're home from Laos and happy to report that the new kitchen we built was a huge success! The Kindergarten Lunch Program was officially launched, so now the children will be receiving at least one nutritious meal each day. This is important in a country where 40% of children are malnourished and many don't eat breakfast before heading out to school. The program will also encourage parents to send their children to school (many keep them home to help on the farm).

We want to begin by personally thanking some important people.

Our Generous Donors
Jin and Joo Lee Family Foundation
Aurora/Naperville Rotary Club
Jong-Ho and Duk-ja Choi















Here's the new kitchen (the smaller building in the background) from a distance. The high ceiling helps with circulation and to cool it down in the hot season. The floor is raised two feet so the water doesn't come in during the rainy season. Inside it has running water and electricity (for the stove--so they don't have to use charcoal, which is hard on the lungs). It also has all the equipment necessary to prepare food for 60 children.














Here's the Kindergarten Food Program in action!














Here's us with Jin and Joo Lee--two of our donors and also two of the most inspiring people we've ever met!














And here we are, standing in front of the kitchen. The Lao text behind us actually names all the donors on this project and the full cost in kip. Check out Thanou's rock-star hair! He got a haircut soon after that.














These adorable faces are the reason we do all we do. They are singing us a "thank you" song for building the kitchen and starting the lunch program.

2010 Project: Kitchen

Hi all,

We're in Laos right now at a tiny Internet cafe on Khong island.

The Kitchen Project

The kitchen we're building for the local kindergarten school is coming along great. We'll have an official opening ceremony next week when our major donors arrive.

This project couldn't have happened without our generous donors Jin and Joo Lee! They were also supported by their local rotary club, of which they are members. They'll be flying here next week to help us get supplies for the kichen and for the opening ceremony. We can't wait to meet them.






Here's the kitchen as it looks right now--almost finished!









Here's the fence we built two years ago (along with upgrades to the school) all standing strong.














Ban Dua Kindergarten

Yesterday we visited the kindergarten school we built last year for children on Ban Dua island--a small island with no electricity or running water. This was the first time we were able to see it completed and it looks awesome--definitely solid enough to withstand the monsoon rains that eventually destroyed the last school (which was made of wood). The local villagers were very grateful and are using the leftover materials from the old school to fix up the primary school next door.

Update 2009

Okay, I've got to play some catch up here--we've been busy!

Ban Dua Kindergarten Finished
So we finished the second room on the kindergarten in Ban Dua. We were fortunate to be able to do it mostly with brick (the first room had a brick base wall with replaceable rattan upper walls), so it should be housing children for a good many years to come. The posts are all concrete so it will stay standing through whatever monsoon weather this summer throws at them. The children (and teachers!) are thrilled to have such a strong and well-built school to learn in.

Ban Dua Receives Visitors
Also, we came into contact with a kind and adventurous retired couple from Illinois, Jin and Joo Lee, who decided to visit the Ban Dua project in Laos. They brought books and crayons with them to give to the children, who were thrilled to have visitors from abroad.

Muong Khong Anuban to Get a Kitchen Building!
They also visited our first kindergarten project, Muang Khong Anuban, and learned that they needed a kitchen built for a number of reasons that would greatly help the students. Here' s the great news: they are on the board of a foundation that has decided to work with Jai Dee to do this project! It should be completed sometime this January.

Teachers' Professional Development
We are excited to announce that kindergarten teachers in the Muong Khong District are now meeting regularly and sharing ideas on ways to make their schools better places to learn. The meetings are organized by Nyom (whom we have supported through various training programs to become a leader for teachers in the area). Previous to this, many of the teachers had never even met, nor had they seen what other schools were doing. This helps them to share best practices, and makes a real impact for very little money (just the cost of quarterly meetings).

Good Things Happening!
So, as you can see, good things are happening here with Jai Dee. We continue to be so grateful for all your support--the children of Laos, especially, thank you.

We are currently planning to go to Laos this coming Dec/Jan 2009/10 to oversee this project, follow up on our other previous projects and to look into future ones.

Hope you're all having a fabulous summer!

All the best,
Shawn and Thanou

Finishing the Kindergarten in Ban Dua

It's hard to believe a year has gone by! We have been continuing to work on our projects in Laos. This year the kindergarten at Ban Dua will be completed (it still needs the cement posts and the second room completed). We will also continuing helping teachers to network and share resources through regular meetings. Stay tuned for updates and photos (likely not until February).

Ban Dua's Kindergarten Gets Walls!

Ban Dua is a small village on an island called Don Beng on a stretch of Mekong River in Southern Laos known as See Phan Done (Four Thousand Islands). In the dry season the river recedes, revealing thousands of islets. In the monsoon, the river covers many of them. The island's only claim to fame is that it still has remnants of the old French trail, which is now a dirt path through this one-path town. Tourists rarely go there. There are no guest houses, and no clean water or electricity. Most of the people who live there come from families that have lived on the island for generations. They grow their own rice and vegetables and catch their own fish. Unfortunately fish have been on the decline for the past 30 years. This situation can only deteriorate with overfishing and the new dam projects being built along the river for hydroelectricity.

Despite the island being small and isolated, a number of the residents are fairly educated (By Laos standards) and believe in the importance of education for their children. The kindergarten school at Ban Dua was first built by an American in the 1960s. In the following 40 years the termites ate most of the wood, creating extensive structural damage. The cement base was still sound however, and some of the wood was salvageable once trimmed of the damaged bits (the wood in Laos is so hard it's like iron--very challenging to hammer nails into).

All of the villagers pitched in to help with putting up the walls. They also prepared lunch (they even made a special vegetarian dish just for Thanou and I). They continued with their previous trend of feeding us fresh coconuts from morning till night (which meant they had to shimmy up the tall trees to get them--and once incurred the wrath of angry red ants to do so). Ah how I love fresh coconuts! They are one of the healthiest foods on the planet, and I'm convinced they are part of the reason why I was never sick during my stay in Laos--a first!) We did try to help with the actual building, but mostly just got in the way.

There were some interesting challenges with putting up the structure (it was all done by human-power with a few long pieces of bamboo) but it was still completed in record time (4 days, though that doesn't include all the running around we did to get the materials at the best prices). Due to limited time and resources, we only did one room of the two-room building. However, this gives them a good solid room with walls and a new roof to protect them through the monsoon, and we'll finish the other side next year. It still needs cement posts, and then the base brickwork for the second room, and a few more pieces of tin for other side of the roof. That said, it looks great as is and is quite functional for now. We also bought the school some basic supplies, such as floormats, blankets for the children when it gets cold, and the usual pencil crayons and notebooks.

We are very happy with the outcome, and especially with all the help we received from the community itself. Bravo to Ban Dua--the small village with a big heart!
















People from the community raising the post structure during the kindergarten school room renovation.















Ban Dua's volunteer builders in front of what will be the newly renovated kindergarten room.
















The newly renovated kindergarten room in Ban Dua.





























A before shot of the inside of the kindergarten. An after shot of the inside of the newly renovated kindergarten room with Shawn and Ban Dua's kindergarten children.
















Kindergarten children in front of their newly renovated school room.

Visiting Schools

Unfortunately we won’t have time to visit all 16 schools this year, so we decided to visit two schools based on leadership and need (as well as finishing off our project with the kindergarten we helped last year in Muong Khong).

Khinak Kindergarten: Water Pipe


Phengphanh Philachak (head of kindergarten) with water pipes purchased by Jai Dee.



The first school we visited was Khinak, on the mainland, which serves around 80 children. We were very impressed with the kindergarten principal and her teachers—when we arrived the children were focused on learning shapes, and each child was taking turns at the blackboard. The rooms were clean, orderly with a wash basin area. And she had used old tires to create a play area outside for the children. The only thing they really needed was a waterline from the elementary school next door, and since it was only $50 we decided to do it on the spot. We went to the local hardware store, bought the pipes etc, hired a contractor and left. We shall go back to check on it in a few days.

Ban Dua Kindergarten: A School with No Walls


The second school we visited was Ban Dua, on the little island of Don Baing. During the meeting with all the principals, the principal of Ban Dua’s kindergarten really stood out because of her enthusiasm and initiative. She said that her students attended regularly even though the school had big holes in the walls. They had no money so she made her own educational toys.

Getting to Ban Dua turned out to be an adventure. We rented a motorbike and drove from Muong Khong to the end of the island. Then we parked our bikes in the ferry owner’s backyard and waited for him to come and start the ferry—a couple of dugout-style boats with planks of wood nailed across them. From the other side it was a 20-minute walk across dried up rice fields and through the small village of Ban Dua before we arrived at the kindergarten. The principal had not been exaggerating. The walls were mostly missing and the roof had holes all over it. During storms, the wind whipped through and water would lash the children. Not to mention the fact that you can’t put up posters or store school supplies in such a faulty building. We talked to the government official for the school (both the elementary & kindergarten schools) and were soon joined by a mix of other teachers and locals. We told them we wanted to help but it had to be a partnership. We would provide the materials, but the community would have to pitch in to help. Also, it would need to be done very fast, started within a week.



This created a flurry of planning and measuring. Meanwhile, we were handed fresh coconuts with straws in them. It was many hours later when we took the long walk back to the ferry and headed to the market to order the supplies. Actually getting the supplies (and money changed to pay for the supplies) was another adventure, which included 2 full days of driving around on a rented motorbike from dawn till dusk. But all is on track and we’re excited! This Saturday (Jan 19) we will be up at 5am to go over and help the community put up the bricks, wood, etc. We’ll be buying lunch for all—which means we buy the food here and bring it there to be cooked. They’ll be contributing freshly-caught fish. It should be quite a good, dirty workout!

Left to right: Come-mun Mannivanh (head of kindergarten), Thanou (Jai Dee), Somie Singh-sa-vah (head of education for Ban Dua).

Making Children’s Picture Books for 15 Schools

During the meeting we held with the principals of the 16 kindergarten schools in the district, Nyom showed the other teachers how she had made her own children’s books out of exercise books and pencil crayons. The teachers wanted to make their own, and since we want to encourage creative initiatives we decided to buy the basic materials for them. We had already planned a trip to Pakse to pick up the fencing materials to finish last year’s kindergarten school fence, so it would be easy to pick up the school stuff.

The trip included a dusty 3-hour songthaow (open truck) ride from Muong Khong to Pakse with Nyom (the principal of Muong Khong’s kindergarten). The truck dumps you on the outskirts of Pakse, so we had to catch a tuk-tuk (motorcycle taxi) to the central market, the Dow Hun market. Trying to get work done in Laos is always an adventure! And getting them home was really something—imagine transporting a huge section of steel fence, boxes of school supplies and 6 bags of vegetables on various buses (we had to lug them around ourselves!) But we got the fencing and supplies and they’ll be handed out at the next monthly meeting.

Nyom buying school supplies in Pakse.

Nyom and Shawn try to take a nap on a loaded truck with people and stuff.

This is what the truck looks like. Check out the bananas.