Skills Training, Laos

Laotian girl learning how to weave. Photo: David Huffman/CWS

CWS-Laos dedicates itself to addressing the serious educational needs of the Laos minority population, and brings a wealth of experience, understanding, and fruitful collaboration with local, provincial, and central governments and mass organizations in a socialist, national environment.

In this project, CWS is working with some 200 ethnic minority students and teachers at two ethnic minority boarding secondary schools located at: Ban Nam Ly, Sampan District, Phongsaly Province, and Lak Sipjet, La District, Oudomxay Province. Some 1,000 participant family members benefit indirectly from the project.

CWS is providing skills training to ethnic minority youth who have been unable to attend or complete formal primary education. This training is for skills that will be useful for improving income and quality of life in their villages, and includes courses in appropriate subjects including: carpentry, blacksmithing, welding, weaving, tailoring, fish raising, animal husbandry, vegetable gardening, and other tasks.

Young man in lettuce garden

Young man showing off lettuce. Photo: CWS

In this project, students are learning to garden, cook, use carpentry tools, and build a simple house or a small shed. CWS provides gardening tools and kitchen utensils, as well as basic carpentry tools and minor building materials -- nails, hammers, and roofing sheets. In the building component, the students improve their living areas at school, as well as those of their teachers.

The acquisition of additional vocational skills by these students will vastly improve their survival skills and better their chances for employment and earning a living. Their skills put into practice to improve the boarding school’s facilities will also enhance the living conditions of both students and teachers, thus insuring a better learning environment.

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Updated 10/12/04

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