Laos

In a multiethnic society, we engage in activities that support the education of children in regions that have a large number of ethnic minorities.

Background of Activities

In Laos, where fifty ethnic groups live, children are taught in school in Lao, the official language of Laos. Teachers are poorly equipped with knowledge, techniques, and materials necessary to effectively teach ethnic minority children who learn Lao only after they begin elementary school. While the urban areas in Laos have grown economically, the educational gap between the cities and rural areas has widened. In farming areas, there are many ethnic minority children who cannot speak Lao, the official language. In addition, children have been placed in poor learning environments with many unresolved issues, including teachers’ lack of knowledge and techniques, shortage of teaching material, and aging school buildings.

What We Do

We are working to improve the quality of education in the northern part of Laos, where people are faced with various problems, including the educational gap between cities and rural areas and minority ethnic children who cannot speak Lao.

School Construction Project

With a shortage of school buildings and the aging of existing school buildings, the learning environments of children in the area are far from adequate. To help with this situation, we are building schools in areas with the highest needs to provide children with safe schools and learning opportunities. We work with the province’s Department of Education to build schools, prioritizing residents’ direct involvement in the construction work, such as wood preparation and land leveling. Once a school is built, we provide teachers and students with hygiene education so that they will become accustomed to hand washing and cleaning and be able to keep their school building clean over a long period of time.

Project on Improvement of Multi-Grade Class Management by Enhancing the Teaching Capacity in Primary Education

In the northern part of Laos, over one third of the schools employ multi-grade teaching, where a teacher teaches two or three grades at the same time. However, many teachers have difficulty managing their classes and this has been significantly affecting children’s learning outcomes. We work with educational authorities and teacher education schools to develop material for multi-grade teaching and provide teachers with training so that they can give classes in a practical manner. Our goal is to expand the impact of our efforts across Northern Laos.

Reading Promotion Project with Picture Books (mobile libraries, picture book publication)

In most schools in the farming areas in Laos, children have little opportunity to encounter books. We provide the children of these schools with opportunities to experience the pleasure of reading, through our mobile library services, which includes storytelling, paper theater (KAMISHIBAI), and recreation events. We also distribute picture books to elementary schools and encourage them to set up corner libraries so that children can read books whenever they want. For teachers, we hold training sessions on library circulation, book management, and storytelling techniques. In addition, we are actively publishing/reprinting ethnic minorities’ folktales and our original picture books that children from ethnic minority groups who are not native Lao speakers can relate to.

Activities So Far

Since we launched our first project in Laos in 1992, we have contributed enormously to the improvement of the quality of education in the country, as well as the protection of its cultures.

Mimeograph Making and Promotion Project
A mimeograph, also known as gari-ban, is a low-cost, easy-to-use printing machine that works without electricity.
Library Box Distribution Project
Back in 1992, the only library was the national library in the capital, Vientiane, and few elementary schools had their own library (or a corner library), and there weren’t any public libraries.
Children’s Home for Culture and Education Support Project
After trade liberalization, other countries, particularly its neighboring country, Thailand, began to greatly affect Laos so the need to protect its cultures and hand them down to the next generation became urgent.
Public Library Support Project
As we promote reading, the need for books for children who have outgrown picture books increased and, accordingly, the need for a public library open to everyone arose.

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Mimeograph Making and Promotion Project

A mimeograph, also known as gari-ban, is a low-cost, easy-to-use printing machine that works without electricity. In 1985, before we opened our Laos office, we held a mimeograph utilization workshop, responding to the Ministry of Education’s request. Then, after we opened the office in 1992, we distributed a mimeograph to every elementary school in the country, a total of 8,120 as of 2000, and trained teachers from representative elementary schools and relevant officers from the education departments of all the provinces and districts on how to use a mimeograph as a teaching tool.

Library Box Distribution Project

Back in 1992, the only library was the national library in the capital, Vientiane, and few elementary schools had their own library (or a corner library), and there weren’t any public libraries. To improve this situation, we distributed 1,974 library boxes to 1,207 elementary schools that did not have a library, in support of the national library’s Laos National Reading Promotion Campaign launched in 1990. We also held training sessions to teach teachers how to manage books and how to read books to children. Even today, library boxes are used in Laos because they can be carried anywhere and, in an instant, turn any place into a library.

Children’s Home for Culture and Education Support Project

After trade liberalization, other countries, particularly its neighboring country, Thailand, began to greatly affect Laos so the need to protect its cultures and hand them down to the next generation became urgent. For this reason, we worked with the All-Japan Prefectural and Municipal Workers Union (JICHIRO) to build Children’s Home for Culture and Education, a place for library and traditional cultural activities, in Vientiane, in 1995, and then helped operate the facility. Today, following this effort, the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism of Laos has established a Children Cultural Center in each province to expand similar activities across the nation.

Public Library Support Project

As we promote reading, the need for books for children who have outgrown picture books increased and, accordingly, the need for a public library open to everyone arose. For this reason, we helped construct the Public Library of Savannakhet in 2003, with the collaboration of librarians from JICHIRO Nagoya. By the end of 2013, we built public libraries in six provinces, renovated the Luangprabang Public Library and provided public libraries in eight provinces with training and books.