Children of Asia Laos provides care and educational opportunities for Laos’ most impoverished girls and young women so that they can acquire the skills and qualifications they need in order to lift themselves out of poverty and build safe and dignified lives for themselves and their families.
The challenge(s) that Children of Asia is addressing:
W4’s Field Partner Children of Asia works to provide educational opportunities for girls and young women from extremely poor, rural, ethnic minority communities in Laos. Poverty is widespread in Laos, where over a third of the population is struggling to survive on less than $1 per day. Girls and young women from rural ethnic minority communities are especially disadvantaged: the combination of debilitating poverty, inadequate educational infrastructure and an urgent lack of trained teachers severely limits their educational opportunities and life prospects.
Children of Asia runs 8 schools in the rural Oudomxay and Luang Prabang provinces, providing a range of programs designed to overcome the barriers to education that girls and young women face: food aid, healthcare, psychological support, school and university scholarships, vocational training courses and the supply of crucial learning facilities and materials such as school supplies and libraries.
There is an urgent need for educational support of disadvantaged girls and women in Laos and Children of Asia would like to impact the lives of more girls and young women in the region by extending the outreach of its programs. The organization would also like to ensure that capable young women are not held back because of poverty but instead can continue their studies at university or vocational training colleges.
You can be a changemaker!
You can offer the life-transforming chance of an education to a girl or young woman in Laos and help improve her life prospects and the prospects of her community by:
- Sponsoring the education of girls or young women from marginalized ethnic minority communities;
- Supporting young women as they pursue a college education and/or professional training;
- Funding a teacher training program to equip young women with the skills and qualifications to return to their home villages as teachers and reinvest their knowledge the education and prospects of other underprivileged girls and young women;
- Bringing environmentally-friendly lighting and technology to girls’ and young women’s schools through the installation of solar panels;
- Contributing to the funding of vital educational infrastructure and services through the construction, maintenance, and renovation of schools and libraries.
You can also help by being an advocate of our work, by raising awareness about these programs to promote the social and economic empowerment of disadvantaged girls and women in Laos, and by motivating others to contribute and/or spread the word!
The difference you can make: the impact of your giving
Your donation can have a life-changing impact. Ensure that girls and young women from poor communities in Laos exercise their right to an education and can determine their own futures. Your support will not only improve individual lives, but will also foster the emergence of girls and young women in Laos as full participants in society, enabling them to contribute to the development of their communities.
Relevant Country Data:
Capital: Vientiane
Population: 6,288,000
GDP per capita: $2,048
Population living below $1.25 PPP per day: 33.9%
Adult literacy rate, both sexes (aged 15 and above): 72.7%
Infant mortality rate (probability of dying between birth and age 1 per 1000 live births): 42
Maternal mortality ratio (deaths of women per 100,000 live births): 580
Life expectancy at birth: 67.5 years
