1. Background of the host community
Ban Nammad Mai, located in the Luang Namtha province of Lao PDR has the smallest, poorest, and least developed hill tribe which is the Akha ethnic group. The villagers work long hours as a farmers or gardeners and survive on a very low incomes. A large part of the villagers live in a thatch-roof wooden houses that grouped around an open dirt area with lack of basic necessities such as water, food and electricity to fend themselves.
By custom, girls who are not in school must work for their families: working in the rice fields, carrying heavy objects or providing hospitality to guest. This makes female Akha children vulnerable to abuse and violence. According …show more content…
As a result, students in the village does not have a quality education due to insufficient textbooks in class and often does not have one-on-one time with their borrowed books which led to difficult learning and teaching.
2. Proposed Activities to meet the specific needs of the host community
Based on the problems faced in Ban Nammad Mai, there are several solutions that could be done to allow children to meet their education potential. Some of these programmes are targeted at providing opportunities for the females with free educations to reduce the burden on poor families and convincing the head of the families on the importance of committing their daughters to full time education while others are aimed at raising funds to provide the students with their own personal textbooks to allow them to study more effectively.
• Volunteer educational …show more content…
Benefits to the host community
If the community programme is developed for the Akha villagers of Ban Nammad Mai, the benefits to the host community are:
• Female villager opportunities
With free education for females that do not have the opportunities to attend school, they are now able to study for a brighter future. In the future, these girls will become community leaders, and provide opportunities for the number of literate females to increase. Volunteers invited representative from the Lao Women Union could also bring the parents with their life experience and expertise to show them a different worldview, and positively changed their mind-set towards education as they are the living examples of the benefits of being educated.
Parents would then be empowered with the knowledge of the importance of education and volunteers would persuade them to treat their children’s fairly and allow their daughters to commit to a full time education. Hence the programme serves to aid the parent and child of the host community which might lead to a change of beliefs of their own community in the future.
• Personal study materials and reducing