Wheel2Wheel

Wheel2Wheel: Child’s Dream – On the Ground in Laos

Child’s Dream, one of the excellent organisations W2W is proud to support, is focused on improving children’s health and education opportunities throughout the Mekong sub-region of South East Asia.

 

They achieve this through school-building projects and associated education and health initiatives.  Child’s Dream have accumulated a formidable track record – with 100 projects completed or in progress in seven years since foundation – and are busily continuing their work in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos (where W2W will visit them) and Myanmar (Burma).

 

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The real story behind the headlines, however, is the tremendous challenges and obstacles that must be overcome to deliver these projects on the ground in inaccessible and sometimes inhospitable corners of SE Asia.  Raising funds and engaging a committed base of donors and supports is one challenge.  Accessing remote villages with no roads, engaging with local communities, negotiating with government officials, as well as dealing with the myriad problems encountered in delivering a construction project on time and budget, are all part of the day’s work at Child’s Dream.

 

Recently, we were given an insight into what it is like on the ground on a Child’s Dream project.  This is an excerpt of a report written by Dennis Lerchl (an investment banker who has been volunteering at Child’s Dream) about a field trip to Laos.

“Having been working for Child’s Dream for almost 2 months in their head office in Chiang Mai (Thailand), I was very excited to join the Laos team on one of their field trips to the Northern part of the country”.

 

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“Lao PDR’s very basic and often non-existent infrastructure was definitely one of the most astonishing but also most exciting experiences. The majority of the roads are unpaved, bumpy and muddy so that cars and trucks frequently get stuck and have to be pulled out, especially in the rainy season. In fact, this happened to us a number of times but this exercise is ‘part of the game’ and quickly becomes routine. Often, when driving in the mountains, many roads are so narrow that two vehicles hardly fit besides each other. Many mountain paths also have a deep drop off on one side, which goes several hundred feet straight down, further stimulating the driving experience. Guard rails are non-existent and the only safety measure really is to be precautious. Due to the very hilly landscape in Northern Laos, roads are often impacted by landslides, falling rocks and uprooted trees, blocking the roads until they get cleared by heavy machinery”.

 

 

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“During our 8-day trip to Northern Laos we visited a total of 5 projects, thereby installing 3 water systems, building one playground and reviewing the progress of the construction of 4 new school buildings”.

 

“Having visited a number of projects in Laos I can now really make sense of Child’s Dream’s mission statement as well as the underlying rationale. For example, I now know what it means to focus on communities in rural and remote areas. These are typically villages far off the main roads which are very difficult to access – sometimes, the roads are so bad that it’s impossible to get there by car. I remember one day-trip when we tried to deliver building materials to a new school but had to return half-way as the road turned into a complete disaster. Some of these villages and schools are totally neglected, have never been visited by Laotian government officials, lack attention of other NGOs and truly rely on self-support”.

 

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“Another very important take-away … is Child’s Dream extensive involvement of the communities in its projects. Why is this so important? First of all, involving the communities serves the purpose of aligning interests between beneficiaries and supporters. As the realization of the projects often takes a few months (e.g. school construction) and since Child’s Dream only has limited resources, we rely on key people on the ground (foreman) to support, manage and oversee the implementation process. In most projects, the communities contribute by providing labor and/or raw materials. However, for a project to be effective over the long-term, Child’s Dream also requires ongoing support by the beneficiaries post implementation”.

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“Last but not least, the trip also raised my awareness for weaknesses and deficiencies in the general education system, i.e. why education in some villages is not as effective as it could be despite the availability of basic infrastructure such as school buildings.  Some schools simply lack sufficient teachers so that the teachers available need to cover an extensive number of subjects, while potentially lacking the required education and knowledge themselves.  This means that some schools are not able to teach the official curriculum, thereby creating discrepancies in the quality of teaching amongst schools.  Also, the awareness of the importance of education among families is lower, so many children drop out of school at some point or refrain from attending a secondary school”.

 

“While NGO’s and charity organizations carry out an incredibly important task by providing basic infrastructure and advice on education and health topics, clearly the overall responsibility for the education system remains with the national and local educational administration. According to recent publication by UNICEF (Schools of Quality in Lao PDR: an Evaluation, 2009) the allocation of the national budget for the education sector remains insufficient to meet the Government of Laos’ goal of universal primary education by 2015”.

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“But the education situation in Laos can be improved materially over time if all parties involved (government, national and local education administration, universities, schools, teachers, NGOs, etc.) maintain their focus towards the common objective”.

 

“Coming from a completely different background where education is free and granted to everyone and where people benefit from an excellent infrastructure … it is just impossible to imagine peoples’ living conditions in a remote area in Lao PDR: you have to make the experience yourself! Having said this, I really appreciated the opportunity to contribute to the installation of three water systems and witnessing the immediate impact of our work: seeing very happy school children washing their hands, drinking water and filling empty plastic bottles for their families. This experience and especially knowing that the whole community would now benefit from clean drinking water going forward provided me with a lot of satisfaction!”

 

Thank you for this illuminating insight, Dennis.  The full report is available at www.childsdream.org

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