Breastfeeding: a winning goal for life

It’s now World Breastfeeding Week and UNICEF Laos and the Lao Government continue to promote the life-saving benefits of breastfeeding.

Simple but effective: Water taps in remote areas

Ms Bou and her grandson © UNICEF/Laos/2014/S.Nazer

A simple water tap can bring huge benefits to many people, especially for women and children in rural areas who are often burdened with the responsibility of collecting and carrying water each day. In Yang village, in the northern province of Luang Prabang, villagers spoke of how new water taps have helped change their everyday lives for the better.

Ms Bou, a grandmother of one who thinks she is around 50, sat with us in a dusty wooden village meeting hall to talk about how things have changed since she was young. As a young girl and later a mother, she recalls how tiring it was collecting water with children.

Innovating for water in schools

Carlos Vasquez reports on an innovative initiative bringing water to schools:

Providing water in schools for hand washing is as crucial in Lao PDR as many other initiatives to improve the lives of students. There are many far-reaching benefits linked to hand washing: fewer infectious diseases, fruitful results of existing school meal plans and healthier lives. This is why German development organisation GIZ and UNICEF have joined forces to test a new design to get clean water flowing into schools.

Claire's Accessories visit Lao PDR

Popular retail company Claire's Accessories visited us in late March to take a look at some of our education work in Lao PDR. Through UNICEF UK, Claire's are supporting the Schools for Asia programme.

The focus will be particularly on those who, because of their gender, ethnicity, disability, geographic location or poverty are less likely to get a quality education.

Schools for Asia countries include Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Timor-Leste and Vietnam. Read more about the launch of this initiative here.

A video and more information will follow shortly, but in the meantime take a look at some photos from their visit. Click the icon in the bottom right to make the slideshow full screen.

 

Getting healthcare to every child

Mrs Huepa, centre, and her family

When I asked people how far it was to Kiew Kalei village, they said it wasn’t far, only 12 kilometres. But in fact the route is much more complicated and scary: the village sits on a high hill with only one unpaved dusty road zigzagging its way around steep drops. Only one car can fit through the road at a time and if the car stops, as we had to at times to let motorbikes squeeze by, you should put rocks behind the tires to stop the car rolling away.

UNICEF & Mrs Bik: Working together to promote breastfeeding

UNICEF went to Sekong Province, southern Lao PDR, to take a look at how UNICEF and the Lao Government work with people like the amazing Mrs Bik to promote breastfeeding. Click on the Mrs Bik's photo to follow her story (when Flickr opens, click 'show info' at the top to read the story).
 



Mrs Bik promoted breastfeeding in her village



Japanese pop star Ai Kawashima visits UNICEF/AEON supported village

Popular Japanese singer-songwriter visited Longlao village and its primary school to take a look at a community water supply scheme and water and sanitation facilities, supported by Japanese company AEON through UNICEF.

To view the full photo captions, expand the gallery and click 'show info' in the top right corner.

Toilets for all

World Toilet Day, 2013 (c) UNICEF/2013

Weaving his way through a menagerie of chickens, ducks, dogs and pigs, past his family’s wooden stilt house and a dirt playground, fifth-grader Somkhan, 14, points at two small concrete outhouses at the side of the school grounds.

“This is where we go to the toilet now,” he says.

Two taps for hand washing stand close to the basic latrines, which serve the primary school in Don Xai village, a remote community of 50 households nestled in the dramatic landscape of mountainous Phongsaly province – one of the poorest in land-locked Lao PDR.