www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeBMh0dAo_c

It never ceases to amaze me how much water changes people’s life.  Especially in Laos, where the climate can be extremely hot and dry.   While in the rural areas, it was nearly 90 degrees and unbelievably dry and dusty.  Living in this environment for a few days will dehydrate you fast.  And what is absolutely crazy is that rarely do the village children carry water bottles.  In fact, I never saw it once.  So what do they do, one might ask?  Well from what we gathered, they come to school from 9am-12pm and then they walk to a river that is nearly 20 minutes away to drink.  They then return to school, which is another 20 minutes and finish their school day from 2pm – 4pm.  It is very normal for children to get sick from bacteria in the water or from not washing their hands after using the toilet.

Nine months ago, I met with MiiR Founder, Bryan Pape.  While chatting with him, he informed me that a child’s brain does not develop properly without water.  If a child’s brain is dehydrated, it cannot grow to be healthy or retain the knowledge that education books and supplies can aid.  This simple understanding has propelled us to tackle education problems in Laos from a multidimensional angle, which encompasses supporting water projects and education resources.  If a community doesn’t have water and they need it, we will co-invest in a water pump with them.  The importance of co-investment is the foundation on which liveGLOCAL sits.  Once a water pump is added to the school, teachers see improved attendance, healthy children, and an increased ability to study and learn.

Before I get ahead of myself, you might be wondering what “co-investment” means? Simply stated, co-investment is when both parties (the community and liveGLOCAL) bring money to solve the immediate education or clean water problem that they are facing.

It takes both need and an ability to co-invest for us to partner with a village. Without these two important requirements, we have found that books and resources are not taken care of and negative or dependent qualities are created. Communities if not properly managed can even waste or reject aid and aid opportunities.  We do not work with communities that we feel do not take the education system seriously. Every village in Laos says that they need aid but few bring their own resources to the table to invest in their own children’s future. We look for at least a 15% co-investment when doing projects, which usually requires the village chief and community leaders to pool money by visiting the homes in the village to ask for donations.

The pump that you see in this video was our second successful co-investment project in Laos!  The community managed the building of the pump, which included purchasing the concrete, fence materials, and building it.  They paid about about 1,600,000 kip ~ $200 U.S. dollars.    We paid 13,000,000 kip ~ $1600 U.S. dollars for the pump, so in this situation the community co-invested 12.5% of the final project costs.

For the four libraries that we built, we had to put a spin on our co-investment development strategy.  In Laos, generally speaking, the elders have no relationship with story books or reading for pleasure.  The lack of understanding the value of story books makes it a challenge to co-invest with them financially.  They don’t grasp the understanding that a child’s imagination and learning grows when they get a thirst for knowledge and ideas.  And observationally speaking, the children’s learning environment in these school’s is not that entertaining.  We hope that these story books inspire the children to grow in their studies.

So whats the different spin?  Our co-investment strategy for the libraries requires each school that we work with to provide a safe holding case for the books.  This ensures that they will be locked up when school is not in session, which prevents them from being stolen or misplaced.  Each of the four schools that we built libraries in have provided safe-keeping (lockable book cases) for the books.  We are extremely excited about how well the teachers received our resources.

Thank you for following and supporting our Christmas and New Years trip to Laos to build four libraries for 400 children, and provide a water pump for 150 children and 700 people in the Houy Chorte village!

We will sum up the trip in a last post in a few days…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=STPU6YTv_Ww

However, on the day that we arrived at the village, nobody was in sight.  Something was wrong and nobody told us about it.  And the fact that nobody informed us that the pump was not working, meant that we drove one hour into the jungle to celebrate a broken pump.  It was not the climatic day we were planning for.  We sat there for about 15 minutes as Mr. Seho (water pump contractor) pumped the handle up and down.  Not a drop amounted.  We were hot, frustrated by the lack of Lao communication, and a bit annoyed with the situation.  Jackie (our translator) informed us that Mr. Seho thought that one of the seals that connects the PVC pipe was not working, thus, no suction was possible to pull the water from the ground.  On the day before, we had seen muddy water come from the pump, so we knew that there was water in the ground.  Thankfully so, or we may have been a lot more concerned considering that time and energy it would take to drill another pump.  Mr. Seho insured us that he was 100% sure that the pump would work and that clean water would flow.   Our plan was to return the next day to open the top of the pump to pull out the PVC pipe and replace the faulty seal.

It has become quite apparent to me that life in the developing world goes at the pace it wants to.  No matter how much we planned out our story line or our daily agenda, it changed.  Whether it was school being cancelled, holidays making people late, or equipment failure, you just have to go with the flow.  To fight against our development goals this trip could have made us go crazy.  Instead, we all just smiled and laughed as best we could.  Heck, I guess we are in the land of the Buddha. 

Stay tuned as we attempt to fix the pump and get clean water flowing for this community…

We stayed a few hours, watching the teachers teach their lesson plans and the students using the notebooks and pens we provided to take notes. In one of the classes, the teacher had students take turns to stand in front of the classroom and read a story to the class. When we first passed the books out, they excitedly flipped through the pages, showing each other the different books they received. There was a lot of laughing, giggling and chattering as I circled the classroom and our translator said to me, “They like the books a lot!” Library project = success!

With a busy day ahead of us, we left Nong Louang to drive an hour to the Nong Pa Noun and Houeychort villages to deliver the rest of the libraries and school supplies. Nong Pa Noun is where liveGLOCAL and Miir installed the first water pump, so we returned to see how the pump was doing, in addition to interviewing the teachers on the students’ progress — so far, so good!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHUETsqa_BA

A few days ago, we stopped by the school in the evening when no one was there and saw how much garbage there was littering the brush behind the school where the pump was located. In Laos, it’s common for people to throw garbage any and everywhere. You rarely see a public trash can and there is no “garbage service” like we have in America. Instead, they burn their piles of garbage, which is shocking to us, a group of Americans who come from cities that recycle and compost religiously. The amount of garbage we saw at the school was pretty disgusting so we thought up a simple contest to get the students to clean up their school. We brought dozens of garbage bags and broke the students up into groups of 8, and the team that brought back a full bag first won a coloring book set with crayons. They went absolutely bananas for this and within 15 minutes, they had a clean schoolyard!

For this school, we brought crayons and paper to do a Miir art project with them. Miir offered to feature a student’s art piece on a skin for their water bottles, with a portion of the proceeds going back to liveGLOCAL so we had the students illustrate the answer to the question, “What does clean water means to you?” Since the only subjects they learn in school are math, science and Lao language, this was a fun and creative break for them.

We accomplished a lot this week and we couldn’t have done it without the donations and support from you. Thank you for helping make all of this possible. We closed out 2011 with the spirit and joy we will undoubtedly carry into 2012 — Happy New Year everyone!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8tDD3EjKFE

This morning we took an hour long bus ride into Pakse, the nearest city, to pick up school supplies (paper, notebooks, pens and crayons) that we were going to distribute with the storybooks. After we got back to Paksong, we drove half an hour to visit the school at the Phumakko village. Phumakko is one of the schools Tyson worked with in the past; in addition to dropping off books & supplies, we checked in on their progress since his last visit. It’s a smaller school, with a little over 30 students between the ages of 3-7 in one classroom.

When we arrived, the kids were having recess and as soon as they saw us pull up, they stopped playing and started waving at us with lit up smiles on their faces.  The excitement was so electric and contagious that none of us could stop smiling while we were there. As we brought the supplies in, they swarmed around us and followed us into their classroom. We gave out new pens and notebooks to the kids as their teacher picked out 50 storybooks for their library. As a part of our coinvestment agreement, the teacher showed us the bookcase with a lock that the school procured.

We interviewed the teacher about the school’s progress and she said since the textbook drop in May, the students’ attendance has increased and there has been a noticeable improvement in their studies. For the schoolbooks, the teacher plans on reading to the kids as a group twice a week in addition to letting them read to each other in small groups. We were really pleased with Phumakko’s progress and are happy to continue working with them in the future.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRqH_zPGti4

Afterwards, we played Ped, Ped, Han (Duck, Duck, Goose), tag, and badmitton with the kids until the school day ended. One of our favorite moments that we wished we could have captured on film (but were too busy laughing on the ground) was when the smallest girl, about 3 years old, goose’d Tyson, the tallest person playing. As he chased her, she shrieked as she realized a man 3 times her size was running behind her. It was definitely an adorable sight!

Tomorrow is going to be a very full day, as we drop off books at the remaining 3 schools, conduct an art project and attend the ceremony for the new water pump with the students, community and officials at the Department of Education. Check back tomorrow to read about the big day!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRJTEgcY1zU

Upon our arrival at the village, we were joined by 185 children who were attentive and curious.  Their curiosity was initially a bit cautious but as we got into the swing of things, they let their guards down and the smiles came out.  After several hours of drilling the water pump, we were hosted at a traditional Lao home for lunch and a ceremony. They fed us a very traditional meal of chicken with the skin on it, alongside coagulated pig’s blood.  (Yes we all tried it.)  Afterwards, they brought out a gigantic, custom Lao vessel of “lao lao,” a fermented rice alcohol that is shared simultaneously through 3 foot long bamboo straws.

Following our interesting lunch and back at the well site, much progress was made!  We hit water, and had a muddy work area for the remainder of the day.  We encountered some issues with sediment, making water flow a bit problematic.  One of the workers climbed the highest nearby tree with astounding ease to assist in our pulling the pipe back out to reset it, hopefully with better luck on the second try.  Stay tuned to see how it all works out!  We hope to pour the concrete tomorrow.

He arrived a few days before me to go to Luang Prabang, where Big Brother Mouse is based. Big Brother Mouse is the only Lao-owned not-for-profit organization in Laos that publishes children’s storybooks in the Lao language. He purchased 500 books and transported it down here to Paksong, which we will distribute at the schools this week.

Today we met with the Department of Education’s directors to discuss our plans for the libraries and installation of the water pump and to sign a contract ensuring their commitment to the co-investment aspect of this project. Co-investment is when both parties, liveGLOCAL and the community, bring money to solve an education or clean water problem. For this project, we required the community to be responsible for 15% of the cost of labor of drilling the well and providing materials for the cement and fencing around the well. For the library books, we wanted them to provide a safe keeping for the books at the school.

The Education Director drafting the contract

After the meeting, we drove an hour to the Nong Pa Nuan village to assess the area where we were going to drill the well. Upon arriving, we realized there was miscommunication on the location of the well. In May, liveGLOCAL and Miir brought the first water pump to Nong Pa Nuan and we thought we were returning to install another pump at a neighboring school. However, when we arrived, the location they chose was in a corner of the village.

We were confused by this choice for several reasons. It was extremely close to the school where the previous well was installed in May and was in a corner of the village that may have only been beneficial for a few families and adults living near it. It was stressful for a bit because we weren’t sure where things got lost in translation and we would be disappointing the community for backing out of putting a pump where they thought we were going to put it. However, after we weighed out the pros and cons, we were resolute on putting the well at the neighboring school.

liveGLOCAL is about fostering education and providing children with basic necessities and resources to enhance their education. We didn’t feel the location they chose was in line with liveGLOCAL’s mission, nor was it what we raised money for back at home. Installing a well in this arbitrary part of the village was not what we had in mind. For a moment there, we thought we were at square one with our planning. Luckily, Jackie, our translator and Lao country director, explained the situation to the village chiefs and within a few hours, we were able to get the situation resolved and broke ground at our intended school!

The kids were so excited when they saw what was happening that they scrambled out of their classrooms and surrounded the drill, watching intently and curiously.

The kids surrounding the drill as it broke ground

Tomorrow we are headed back to complete the installation of the water pump and to check in on the progress and status of the last pump. Keep following our blog as we work toward providing hundreds of children with clean water and storybooks!

We are happy to partner with Givedot for our Christmas trip back to Laos to install a water pump and start four libraries. Founded by our good friend Bryan Papé at Miir, Givedot connects businesses, non-profits and donors. As a non-profit, we’ve selected a few businesses that have special offers that would appeal to our supporters. By purchasing through our campaign page, our foundation receives a percentage of the purchase.

Unlike other fundraiser sites, we love how Givedot allows givers to support causes in a new way. The Givedot platform allows supporters to purchase with a purpose or donate directly to the non-profit. (Did we mention they’re based in Seattle? Bonus points!)

To date, we have already raised $544 on Givedot! With only two weeks left on our fundraiser, we’d be grateful for your efforts in helping us reach our goal. Please forward this link: http://bit.ly.com/liveglocal to your friends and family if you think they might be interested in contributing to our cause.

Please check the blog in a few weeks, as we will be updating it often during and after our trip to Laos. We can’t wait to share the experience with you and to show you what your donations are going toward. Stay tuned…

In May of 2011, The liveGLOCAL Foundation successfully worked with the Laos Government and four local schools on the Bolaven Plateau.  Our co-investment and partnership strategy was a success!

439 children received textbooks, notebooks, and writing utensils.
862 people, including children and adults, received clean water.
17 teachers received updated teacher books.
13 recess and sports equipment projects were completed.

AND… WE ARE GOING BACK!

Recently, we received an email from Jackie Thao, our Laos Community Director and English / Laos translator.  His email was quite simple, 750 people in the Nongpanoun Village still need clean water.  During our time in Laos this May, we partnered with the Nongpanoun school and provided them with school supplies and sports equipment.  However, while we were there we didn’t have the financial resources or time to put in a second water pump.  Currently the 750 adults and children in the Nongpanoun village have to walk 30 minutes both ways to the nearest water source.  This source being a shallow river that they share with roaming cows and anything that may be polluting from upstream.  They bathe, wash their clothes, and drink from this source, often causing people to get sick.

Their clean dirty water source:

This is our plan.  We will enter Laos a day after Christmas and will spend 7-10 days on the Bolaven plateau working with the Nongpanoun village leaders, Laos Government, and a local water contractor to drill 90 meters into the ground where clean potable water is accessible.

However, this is not just a handout.  In the developing world, providing freebies has been a major topic of debate.  Does it hurt communities or help them?  Does it empower them or imprison them?  Does it provide them dignity or create dependence?

In our experience, we feel that it depends on two things:

1. What type of aid is being given?
2. Is this aid given through co-investment or is it a handout?

When assessing the difference between basic human rights and privileges, liveGLOCAL feels that both water and education are certainly human rights… not privileges.  In the coffee communities that we are working with in Laos, individual family members survive on about $.30 – .60 cents a day.  This limited amount of income does not afford for them to invest in simple education necessities such as notebooks and pens.  Plus, the collective community does not have enough money to pool together to invest in a clean water pump for the village and school.

To address this situation, liveGLOCAL specifically partners with remote communities that need both education support and clean water projects.  The combination of clean water and education provide these communities the best opportunity to grow their children into educated young men and women who can improve their coffee farming and health care practices.  Most of the children we are working with are first generation literate, as their parents cannot read or write.

Additionally, liveGLOCAL’s aid is not given without concern for its affect on the communities we partner with.  To ensure that communities are serious about the sustained growth of their children’s education and health, liveGLOCAL only works with villages and schools where there is a co-investment. What does co-investment mean?

Simply stated, co-investment is when both parties, liveGLOCAL and the community, bring money to solve an education or clean water problem.  If they do not need education resources or water, or if they cannot invest in it, liveGLOCAL will not just march in and put in a well and hand out books to the school.  It takes both need and an ability to co-invest.  Without these two important requirements, we have found that books and resources are not taken care of and that negative or dependent qualities might be created.  At liveGLOCAL we have and will continue to walk away from communities where we do not feel that the education system is being taken seriously.  Every village in Laos says they need aid regardless of if it is true and they will take it, though few will bring their own resources to the table to invest in their own children’s future.  liveGLOCAL looks for at least a 15% co-investment when doing projects, which usually requires the village chiefs and community leaders to pool money by visiting the homes in the village to ask for donations.

In our most recent water project, we required the village to co-invest in the the concrete, fence, and labor required for the water pump, which was equivalent to ~15-20% of the cost of the pump.  Several times during the project, the village Chief tried to tell us that they did not have enough money, but it was important for us to keep our foot planted in our co-investment strategy.  To our excitement, they found the money for the concrete and the project was completed.  Not only was this the correct way of administering aid in Laos but every family that invested in the project came together during the water pump ceremony and the community truly felt apart of the project.  Everyone was all smiles, including the Chief and the 70 year old women who had never had clean drinking water in their lives.

liveGLOCAL feels that this approach garners the most positive impact and leaves the village leaders and the community with the most dignity and pride possible.

Today, sitting here at Tully’s in Seattle, my mind keeps drifting back to the children.  The 439 children who have just begun using textbooks for the first time in their lives and the 862 children and adults who now have access to clean water to develop into healthy individuals.   Though I cannot see their physical smiles anymore, I continue to scroll through the pictures and listen to my Laos iPod playlist, knowing that the effects we have made on these four communities will forever live on.

Not only will these effects continue to positively shape these communities but liveGLOCAL has also learned valuable insight on how sustainable development can and should be administered.   This one-month in review will show you what we accomplished on our trip and how this has forever changed us and the communities we’ve bonded with!

Access to a set of textbooks                 # of children
Nong Luang                                                   113
Nong Pa Nuan                                               229
Pumako                                                          31
Nong Born Huayas                                         66
TOTAL                                                           439

* In Laos, the government only provides three subjects at the primary school level, which include Lao language, Math, and Science.  All of the children in these four communities are from Kindergarten – 5th grade.  In each of the four communities we worked with, only the teachers had access to textbooks and the children did not. This creates extreme difficulty because the child is required to retain the knowledge off the chalkboard but does not get to interact with the material firsthand. We were excited to hear the teachers say that having the child interact with the textbooks firsthand would drastically improve their ability to teach effectively.  Plus, they informed us that they would use these textbooks for at least three years before replacing them. *

Access to Clean Water                        # of people
Nong Pa Nuan (children)                        229
Nong Pa Nuan (adults)                           567
Nong Born Huayas (children)                  66
TOTAL                                                     862

*liveGLOCAL partnered with MiiR.com to facilitate a water pump that is bringing 862 people access to clean drinking water!  By working with the Laos Education Department (government) and finding a water contractor in Paksong, we were able to implement this project in just eight days.  Additionally, we signed a three-way contract, enforced by the Lao government, which ensures that if the water pump breaks in the first year, it will be fixed for free by the water contractor who installed it.  The major accomplishment comes from the fact that the Nong Pa Nuan village invested about 25% of the cost of the pump in the form of cement and labor.  This is a big deal because development projects become more sustainable when the community itself invests in their own future.  This mutual contribution creates respect, care, and preservation of the pump by the elders in their own use and in their communication to the children.  The final exciting aspect of the water project is that the 40-minute walk to the unsanitary community river has now been eliminated with clean safe drinking water.

Each time you enjoy a glass of water, please remember: $937 U.S. dollars has the ability to bring water from 30 meters below the ground to the surface, so that 862 people will receive access to clean drinking water for the first time in their lives and for years to come!*

Sports Equipment = Recess                   # of projects
Raton Ball Field                                             4
Badminton Field                                            4
Jump Ropes                                                  4
Soccer Field                                                  1
TOTAL                                                          13

*In a region that is dominated by illiterate coffee farmers who have children in school for the first time in their family’s lineage, it is quite obvious that the children are not required to attend school every day.  To bridge the gap between child and their interest in learning, we realized within a short amount of time that we needed to make school exciting.  Sports equipment for recess is that bridge.  In the two weeks that we were in the field, we had almost perfect attendance.  The village chief told us that even on the weekends, which we were not at the school, the children still showed up to jump rope, shoot goals, and hit birdies over the net! *

Teachers Supplies                               Total # of teachers
Teacher Book (sets)                                        17

*These supplies will provide each of the 17 teachers with enough teacher books to get them through one entire academic year.   These resources are not provided to them and they end up paying out of pocket for them or not buying them at all. *

Basic student supplies                         Total # of children
Student Notebook and Pen (set)                     439

*Upon observing the children at school, it became apparent that half of the children lacked paper and a writing utensil to take notes or study.  Plus, what good would it have done if we provided text books if the students could not practice their studies on paper?  To preserve the textbooks as long as possible, we provided the children with lined paper notebooks and pens but simultaneously reinforced the rule that the children not write in the textbooks. *

Overall, our trip was a major success!  The amount of community involvement and support we received was unprecedented.  Plus, we have created a strong relationship with the Lao Government, who has now become a strong supporter of liveGLOCAL’s mission!

Thank you to all who contributed to The liveGLOCAL Foundation at our LEAP auction.  We have taken a huge first step in providing sustainable educational opportunity to thousands of children living on the Bolaven Plateau in Laos.  As we move into the spring of 2011, we will be ramping up our fundraising efforts and will be applying for a number of grants.  You can still help by simply spreading the word about liveGLOCAL or donating here, as we have already selected an additional set of communities to work with as soon as we have the ability to do so.

Sincerely grateful,

Tyson, Meghan & Jackie

Tyson Adams, Founder
Meghan Bunch, Executive Director
Jackie Thao, Laos Education Director
liveGLOCAL & The liveGLOCAL Foundation

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPtp2nFzVdk

Meghan shares her experience of gifting water.

Nong Pa Nuan has a water pump, which now provides water for a community of 862 people!  I have never seen a community more involved, hard working and welcoming than Nong Pa Nuan.  Yesterday afternoon the community held a ceremony and at least four hundred people were present to listen to the village chief officially present the pump.  Watching the kids laughing while washing their hands, drinking from the spout, and playing in the splashes was such a beautiful scene.  After seeing how invested the community was in our projects, financially and emotionally, I am certain we made a sustainable impact.  Not only did the community collect money for all of the cement and labor (which trust me, was not easy for them), they stopped everything they were doing to help with the projects and welcome us.