The Rural Knowledge Team operates out of Pakzeng Community Learning Centre, in collaboration with Lao Women’s Union and the Mother and Baby Clinic. Our courageous, trained educators travel long distances on dirt roads, usually by motorbike or tractor, to remote villages. They hold workshops for the community on basic hygiene and nutrition, as well as motivate community support for adolescents’ wellbeing.
The average population of these villages is 150 people, with up to 40% of the inhabitants below the age of 15. Families live in wooden or bamboo houses with thatched roofs and a dirt floor. An outside pit-toilet may be shared with several families, and water is from a village tap or the river. These mountain-slope communities exist by subsistence farming of highland dry rice, basket weaving, and hunting.
The project will run annually from the end of the rainy season in November, when remote mountain villages become accessible, until June, when the rains start again. Transport and hygiene supplies are costly essentials in this programme.