Welcome to the Project  Laos
Welcome to our website. We will be renewing the content over the next weeks. In the mean time, click here to follow us on Facebook for updates
Project Kajsiab seeks to improve the health of the Lao people the Bokeo Province in Northern Laos and surrounding areas through partnerships and exchange activities between the local people and volunteers.
The project will involve and directly benefit the local people.
Villagers feel the effects of poverty every day in that they experience food insecurity, lack clean drinking water, have little to no access to adequate healthcare and are in short supply of even the most basic human needs such as protective clothing.
Kajsiab aims to promote a mutual and respectful understanding of culture and customs between travellers and local people by working together and integrating both traditional and Western health philosophies to reduce poverty and improve the wellbeing of the people in Bokeo.
Foreign visitors to Bokeo Provice are often looking to leave behind more than just footprints. Rather, they wish to engage in a cultural and educational exchange with local Loa and contribute in a meaningful way to the community. With Project Kajsiab, they will be able to do just that.
In the short term, the project aims to construct two houses to accommodate up to 2 to 3 volunteers in each house and in the living area of the house informal focus groups will be held to gather qualitative information about local people’s knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviour in order to ensure Kajsiab activities are created and implemented with the community in mind.
The project seeks to obtain the necessary supplies so that volunteers can begin teaching basic skills in first aid and food safety, and hold workshops on maternal and reproductive health and child nutrition. Volunteers will also conduct English conversation classes that will enable the villagers to effectively communicate their health needs if they are sent to the larger Lao or Thai healthcare system for major illness or accidents, which is a major concern among community members.
In the long term, the project aims to implement a water system in Bokeo. Kajsiab also aims to work together with several villages toward establishing a women's health clinic, a traditional collective herb garden, and a school for the seven villages in the area.
To every extent possible, this project will use local labour and materials. The community members hold a stake in the sustainability of this project and are inextricably tied to its success as their lives and future depend on it.
Kajsiab means: a flower that blooms, a heart that opens, a love that suddenly springs, the name of a beloved sister who died a preventable death due to a minor infection. This project is founded in her honour to reduce poverty, raise social capital, and provide a culturally sensitive education necessary to bring health to the community in which she lived.
|
