Joyful early childhood learning in classrooms of Laos

Children reading from 'My Village' storybooks in Ban Nadou pre-school

Three stops, three classrooms. Arriving at the gate of Ban Doub School, our first stop, in Ta Oi district of Saravan province, we hear a clamour from within. The children are laughing, clapping and singing, “My village! My Village is beautiful! My village is fun! My village has a lot of colourful flowers!” We are surprised how quick children remember and learn to sing this song. The Early Childhood Education (ECD) TV team and the ‘My Village’ Claymation series from which the song comes from is from visited this school months earlier in December 2015.

The art of storytelling brings learning to life for Lao pre-school children

Mr Savansay Kyong (25) practices storytelling to a group of pre-children in Ban Nalek Kindergarten.

He holds a colourful book in front of a group of expectant children in a classroom at Ban Nalek Kindergarten. The young man from a rural village of Saravan province looks nervous. Around him young children – mostly 6 or under – look at him, curiously waiting for the man’s next move. With a big smile, he raises his hands and says “Sabaidee” or hello and the room responds in kind with a warm welcome in friendly, eager voices, “Sabaidee teacher!”

UNICEF partnership with Lao animator flourishes as pioneering early learning clay-mation series enters third season

Animator Souliya Phoumivong sets up a new scene in season 3 of “My Village”

Picture a small road sidling along the Mekong River just outside Vientiane. Thailand visible just across the water. On both sides line row after row of family homes with motorbikes and pick-up trucks clustered outside. Most offer some kind of homemade business opportunity – a shop, food stall, a mechanic. Behind one of the houses, tucked away almost out of sight, sits an unassuming building. The faintly turquoise, washed exterior walls, pretty potted plants and ordinary appearance disguise the hive of creative activity within. Meet the world’s most unlikely Claymation studio.

Coconut Creativity and ECD TV

Saysomboun is a newly established province in the north of Lao PDR. It is an area rich in ethnic groups who still speak their own language and also the Lao language. One of the new provincial authority's priorities is to work to improve the education of children in the area with limited funding and human resources. But the impact of UNICEF’s ECD TV “My Village” project is being seen in unexpected ways with children of the region...

Turning Despair to Dreams: Meeting Malnutrition Challenges in Lao PDR

Thien (2012) in Adone Village with her 2 year-old son, Thear © 2015 UNICEF Lao PDR / S. Noorani

By Shane Powell, UNICEF C4D Specialist.

Adone village, Saravane province, Lao PDR – Thien was just 16 years old the night she felt her first labour pains radiate up through her belly and around her lower back. Three days later, Thien’s newborn first child died...

UNICEF: Flying High for Kids

Before heading off on an arduous, four year journey through over 100 countries, I asked New Zealander Andrew Parker why he wanted to put himself through such a tough challenge. Apparently, a trip like this has been on his mind for a very long time: “Since my early teens I wanted to travel the world with a balloon, and to do it for a good cause,” he said.

“I knew what I wanted to do since I was six. I saw a balloon fly over my house during a festival and that was it for me, I decided that was what I wanted to do”.

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.

 

Community preschools: Reaching out to the most vulnerable

Saphieu, 5 ©UNICEF/2013/S. Nazer

Five year-old Saphieu, in a remote Akha-speaking village in far Northern Lao PDR, beams at her teacher when she is congratulated for the tower she has built with brightly coloured building blocks. The teacher has to make sure Saphieu is looking directly at her as she is deaf, and never speaks.

"I have to pay extra attention to her," explains the community teacher, 17 year-old Pheomeo. "I have to make sure she sees everything, and often I write things down for her. But she is very smart and picks everything up very quickly. Often, when I demonstrate something on the board for the children to repeat, I turn around and she's already completed it."

Coping with tragedy: a legacy of war in Laos

Peter Kim, a young bomb survivor, at the COPE centre
© UNICEF/Laos 2012/Andy Brown

Peter Kim is a victim of the Vietnam War. But he’s not a Vietnamese or American veteran; he’s a 20-year-old Lao youth living in Vientiane. Four years ago he lost both his hands and eyesight to one of the millions of unexploded bombs that still litter the Laos countryside almost four decades after the war ended.

Directory of Essential Services for Children and Youth

The Vientiane Capital Lao Women’s Union (LWU), with support from UNICEF, UNFPA and World Vision, launched the first edition of the ‘National Directory of Essential Services for Children and Youth in Lao PDR’ on Wednesday at the Vientiane Youth Centre for Health and Development.

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

Samphan's Story

"All children should be protected from violence, abuse and neglect, and governments should protect them," Article 19, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The following testimony was recorded for UNICEF Lao PDR with the help of the Peuanmit Centre Vientiane. All names and voices have been changed to protect the anonymity of those involved.

Breast Milk... and Nothing Else

An informed communications campaign addressing infant and young child feeding, with an initial focus on the promotion of the WHO/UNICEF recommended indicator on exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) for the first six months of life has been identified as a key intervention toward improving child survival rates in Laos.