Request for proposal

UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND (UNICEF)

wishes to invite you to submit a proposal for

Institutional Consultancy for Development of a Parenting Package to promote early childhood development (ECD) for Lao PDR.

SEALED Proposals should be sent to:

UNICEF Vientiane, Lao PDR
Bid Reference Number: LRPS-2018/9141013
Km3 Thadeua Road, Ban Watnak
Vientiane, Lao PDR
Telephone: +856 21 315200 - 04
Facsimile: +856 21 314852

Deadline to submit Proposal: 25 July 2018

For more info, click https://www.unicef.org/laos/about_22792.html

For every child, a strong father

A Fathers’ Day tribute through a new UNICEF dad

- Saykoson Sanoubane

“Her kiss makes my day,” Phonesouphanh Thepbandith, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) assistant at the UNICEF office in Vientiane, says with his smile. “My life – including my priorities – totally changed when Ailynn was born.” He and his wife Anny gave her the name Ailynn, which means graceful and light, lover of nature.

Phonesouphanh is excited to take on is his new role as father, more so for having a supportive and enabling environment. When he joined UNICEF, his wife was just four months pregnant. In that critical time, he needed to balance his new job and his role at home. By availing UNICEF’s flexible leave policy, he took on both new roles in stride.

“UNICEF is a father-friendly office, I feel very fortunate!” he exclaims, adding he learned to deal with new things every day. He started to do his research on how being a good father and supportive husband to his pregnant wife from internet sites, talking to his parents, friends and colleagues – all of which allowed him to ask the right questions to their doctor.

Following through nutrition advice from his doctor, Phonesouphanh made sure he provided the right nutritious food for his wife; including fresh and organic vegetables. “I also learned how to cook and now I am good at it,” he proudly says with a smile. And on the day of his daughter’s birth, Phonesouphanh stayed by his wife’s side – scared but excited. But the moment he laid his eyes on his newborn, he cried in relief.

To help him and his new family settle, Phonesouphanh availed UNICEF’s paternity leave to take care of his wife who was recovering – and to enjoy his new role as a father. “I am so lucky to work where I can use my paternity leave, with a supervisor who is very supportive,” he recalls.

Now Ailynn is six months – with lots of energy, giggles and in the pink of health. “She is being breastfed by her mother,” Phonesouphanh proudly says. He also remains committed to support his wife with all that he can provide; and is very eager to see his daughter grow healthy and full of love.

Fathers play a very important role in the early moments of a child’s life, especially to enable their wives to breastfeed, and to help her provide health stimulants to their newborn by playing with them and providing the love and care. Phonesouphanh continues to visit the market after work, to get his supply of nutrition food for his growing family. He also still cooks and takes turns in changing her diapers at night, and most of all to calm her when she cries.

“I love the new role I play for my wife and as a father to my daughter. The closer Ailynn feels the bond with me and his mother, the happier we are as a family. Even with just a kiss or getting a moment to play with her before going to work – that alone gives me the whole day’s supply of energy to work harder for my family.” Spoken like a truly doting father. Because every child deserves all the love and affection, health and protection that only a father can provide.

Ending polio outbreaks in Laos

- by Simon Nazer

It’s an unseasonably cool morning in Senxay Village, near central Laos, and a good day for health teams to go door to door to vaccinate children against polio. For mothers like 25-year-old Vardy, she’s delighted to see her 5-month-old baby boy being immunized. “I’m really happy,” she says with a beaming smile while bouncing her baby up and down. “I know after being vaccinated my baby will stay healthy and safe.”

In remote ethnic villages like these, children are often the most at-risk of preventable diseases and viruses, and it wasn’t so long ago that tragedy had struck in a nearby village.

In late 2015, an 8-year-old boy suddenly had a high fever and weak limbs. Four days later, he tragically died in hospital from vaccine-derived polio virus.

“Reaching every child with vaccinations can be a challenge, but it’s critical we do to stop similar outbreaks,” says Dr. Inphone Maniseng, Director of the District Health Department overseeing a huge vaccination campaign. “Since the outbreak we’ve carried out eight vaccination rounds for thousands of children.”

However, with the support of UNICEF and WHO, one last push to ensure polio is eradicated once and for all is taking place over ten days in 13 provinces and 90 districts to vaccinate about 460,000 children under five.

Mothers like Vardy in the picturesque villages of Laos not only have their children vaccinated, but understand the need to ensure they keep up with regular vaccinations. “I now know that vaccinations are important to keep my children healthy. I’ll make sure I take them for immunization to keep them safe.”

Community participation

A big reason vaccine-derived polio broke out in this part of Laos was, according to village leader Khamphet Chansomphou, because of low awareness and lack of community involvement. “Raising awareness and explaining the importance of being vaccinated to the villagers was really important to ensure they come,” he says in the local health centre.

“They have to clearly understand that while it’s about keeping children healthy, it’s also about education and their economy. Healthy children can go to school and learn, healthy children don’t need costly medicines.”

UNICEF worked closely with partners to create educational materials in local languages to inform villagers about the importance of being vaccinated. UNICEF staff and partners travelled village to village to deliver the information, show videos using mini-projectors and hold open discussions to explain vaccinations.

“By talking to communities we also get a better understanding of how we can serve them,” says Mr Chansomphou. “It works both ways – it helps us think about how to improve our services and understand people’s needs.”

Polio has now been eradicated and children are safe again, but health providers must ensure efforts to reach every child remain to ensure similar outbreaks never happen again.

Nearby, 20 year old mother Xim Dua was just stopped by a mobile health team. “This is the first time my 5-month baby has been vaccinated,” she says shyly. “We live a long way, I didn’t know.”

Now she knows and after the health team explains to her the need to ensure her baby is vaccinated, she’ll be back. But UNICEF and partners must continue to work to ensure they reach everyone, no matter how far they are. Only then will every child be safe from preventable diseases and illness.

No mountain too high: ending polio in Laos

- by Simon Nazer

For 15 years Daeng Xayaseng has been travelling through rugged, undulating countryside by motorbike and by foot to deliver vaccines to children in some of the most remote villages in Laos.

It’s hard work but she is determined: “We have a target of children to reach and we’ll achieve that no matter how long it takes,” she says. “We’ll keep working until we reach every child.”

Today her team visits Nampoung village, 4 hours north of the capital of Laos, to deliver polio vaccines.

In 2015 a vaccine-derived polio virus was contracted by 11 children and adults, killing 2. Remote, poor and often ethnic communities such as those in this Hmong village are among the most vulnerable to the spread of disease and viruses. When dangerous viral outbreaks occur, it’s important health teams come to those most in need of health services.

“Service times depends on the season,” says Daeng. “It’s rice season right now. The villagers are all farmers so everyone will be working in the fields, a long way from their homes. That’s why our services depend on what the community asks; if they say 3pm, we come at that time. If they say night time, we’ll be there.”

The team first sets up in the centre of the village. In the local Hmong language the village chiefs calls on parents to bring their children to be immunized through booming loudspeakers. Soon, parents arrive with small children in slings on their backs, and the larger children following quickly behind. 

“For 15 years I’ve been working on campaigns like this,” she says. “Today we’re here with our outreach team to vaccinate children against polio. We’ll also go house to house to make sure no child misses out on being vaccinated.”

Once the team finishes at the vaccination point, they then go mobile and walk house to house to find children who didn’t come for immunization.

“We don’t want there to be another outbreak of polio so we have to reach everyone,” says Daeng. “In order to do that, immunizing every child in remote communities like this is a priority to ensure everyone is protected.”

UNICEF, with WHO, is supporting the Lao Government to reach nearly half a million children under five with potentially life-saving vaccines. More than 7,200 volunteers and 1,400 health workers like Daeng and her team have been mobilised to deliver the oral polio vaccine as well as other vaccinations such as measles-rubella.

After several hours, the work is complete.

“I’m very happy and proud to do this job,” says Daeng once the team has packed up. “I’m proud to do this job to serve the community and help in any way I can.”

Improving pedagogical supervision to ensure students’ learning

- Siamphone Buakhamvongsa, Education Specialist, UNICEF Lao PDR

Laos has achieved universal access and gender parity in primary education. Its primary net enrolment rate stands at 98.8%. However, primary completion remains unmet. The primary survival rate (79.6%) is the lowest in South East Asia and the Pacific and shows poor learning outcomes. Adding to that, the repetition rate in early primary grades is high, 11.5% in grade 1, which indicates lack of school readiness of children.

The Government of Lao PDR, with the support of UNICEF, is trying to change this situation. One of the obstacles that prevent children from learning is the low capacity of teachers, and linked to this the fact that they have little supervision and support, having an impact on their teaching practices. Pedagogical supervision, therefore, has been considered the best approach to support primary school teachers’ performance.

Pedagogical advisors of Ta Oi and Saravan Districts assessing current teaching
and learning needs during the capacity building workshop.

Pedagogical advisors of Ta Oi and Saravan Districts
preparing a lesson plan to address the teaching
and learning needs identified in the first part of the workshop.

“Improve pedagogical supervision with increased knowledge and skills of the district pedagogical advisors (PAs) is critical,” explains Takaho Fukami, Chief of Education, UNICEF Lao PDR. That is the reason why the learning oriented capacity building of pedagogical advisors was introduced with UNICEF support in late 2016, shifting away from theory and going towards a much more practical approach, where training is mostly conducted in real schools and where advisors follow actual classroom situations.

“The beauty of this approach is that it is conducted in a real setting. Pedagogical advisors are confronted with real case scenarios and they receive regular feedback from the trainers who are Government officials from the Ministry of Education and Sports at Provincial level,” states Ms. Fukami.

Through this capacity building exercise, PAs have gradually gained necessary knowledge and skills to help teachers to effectively address the teaching and learning needs of individual schools in the entire district.  For many trainees, this has been a life-changing experience. “We have been able to apply what we have learnt into real situations. As a trainee, I have observed others and this has allowed me to gain knowledge too. I highly appreciate this process of learning by doing. The feedback I have received will help me to do better my job, explains Somkhit Mathavong, Head of the Pedagogical Supervision Unit of Ta Oi and Saravan Districts.

With improved knowledge and skills, especially in multi-grade teaching, the PAs have progressively been able to change their supervision methods, using demonstrating, coaching and mentoring techniques. The improved pedagogical supervision has greatly resulted in changing teachers’ teaching practice and has made a difference in the quality of learning.

Mr. Somkhit leading a session on teaching practices 

“I really appreciate this kind of learning as we can immediately apply the knowledge and skills in our supervision practice. Our supervision methods and techniques have been increasingly improved from general observation and thanks to the advice and mentoring from the coaches, who have focused on very practical tips that will allow us to have a positive impact on students’ learning,” said Somkhit Matthavong, Head of Pedagogical Supervision center of Ta Oi District Education.

The results of this approach and training can already be seen. “We have noticed that in our district teachers have changed some of their practices,” explains Mr Matthavong.

Grade one non-Lao speaking students are enjoying their learning.

As some training participants acknowledged, there are still critical challenges to address in terms of teaching and learning at district level, particularly related to how to deal with teaching non-Lao speaking students and multi-grade teaching. UNICEF will continue to provide support to the Government in order to build capacity, knowledge and skills in these areas.