Laos: Room to Read Country Office

On our second day in Laos, the Breadpig gave to us--a visit with the Room to Read country director Somphet Phongphachanh at the Vientiane office!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Somphet and Alexis at the Laos country office for Room to Read"][/caption]

After a day of exploring sleepy and slow-paced Vientiane, we were knocked off our feet by Somphet's incredible energy. Originally trained as a doctor, Somphet has been the Country Director for Room to Read in Laos for all 5 years of its existence. The sincere passion with which she spoke about the challenges and triumphs of her work is impossible to capture in text, but the data might help: starting with only a staff of 4 and an operating budget of $200,000 USD, RtR Laos has now grown to over 30 full-time staff and a large number of contractors working with a budget of 2 million USD--impressively, their operating overhead is still less than 20%. During this time, they've published 82 local language titles, constructed 617 reading rooms and 172 school rooms, and enrolled 1,075 girls in their Girls Education Program. The local publishing program's titles have even won prizes at the annual Lao Book Excellence Awards for two years running!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Some of the many books published by Room to Read Laos"][/caption]

Slow (as in Food) Development

While these are successful numbers by any measure, Somphet is zealous about the quality of her team's work as well. These are not cookie cutter projects hastily mass-implemented across the country: each reading room or school room represents the culmination of an arduous and individualized process that involves identifying the communities with the most urgent needs, getting community and government buy-in to the project, building local capacity, and ensuring long-term sustainability. Somphet and her team take the time to do things thoroughly at every step, investing in slow and difficult procedures that will ultimately strengthen the communities' ability to provide for themselves.

Of all the projects, the Girls Education Program is perhaps the best embodiment of this principle. Each of the 1,075 girls in the program receive an incredible amount of individual attention to ensure that they stick with the school system until at least graduation from secondary school. In each member village, GEP maintains a "social mobilizer" who will sometimes counsel a girl for over a year just to convince her--and her family--to enroll in school instead of getting jobs in Thailand. The social mobilizers continue to mentor girls and their families throughout their education, offer life skills training, spread awareness in the village about trafficking, and work with a council of villagers to determine how scholarships and other types of assistance should be most fairly distributed according to need. Perhaps most importantly, the process often elevates the status of women in the villages and give them a voice where they previously had none. Of the 1,075 girls who have enrolled in the program, only 15 have ever dropped out--and work doesn't even stop there. Somphet told us how her social mobilizers have made midnight phone calls to Thailand to track down girls who left without warning, making sure they are safe and, in some cases, helping them get back to the village if they've changed their minds. Last year, the program graduated its first 5 alumna, and is now working with the government to try to create more local job opportunities for the girls.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="The program directors of the Girls Education Program and the Local Language Publishing Program read XKCD"][/caption]

Community Cooperation

For all of its hard work, however, RtR expects an equal amount of effort from the community and the local government. Work does not start in a province unless the local government shows a willingness to cooperate and commit some of their own resources. Through these healthy working relationships, RtR Laos was able to convince the government to add a free-form "reading period" to the school day to allow students time to read on their own. Similarly, RtR demands a significant amount of buy-in from the communities they work with. Before a school can be built, the host village must commit to raising a "challenge grant" of 15-20% of the resources necessary, including donated wood, land, and labor. Unlike other NGOs that give 100% assistance, Room to Read insists on this process to drive home the point that the community must take ownership of their school if it is to succeed in the long run. Construction is overseen by a cooperative council of villagers who make all the big decisions, and all of the actual labor is provided by villagers under the supervision of a local technical consultant hired by RtR. Villagers also provide the schools' basic furnishings and decorations, as well as taking care of any maintenance or repairs required. The teachers at the school undergo a 3 year training program designed so that the schools would be self-sustaining after RtR's initial funding runs out. Though this is not the fastest way to build a school, it is the sturdiest--by the time Room to Read pulls out of the community to move on to a new one, the school is fully self-reliant and folded seamlessly into the village.

Local Solutions

Somphet attributes part of Room to Read Laos' success to the autonomy she has. Rather than receiving assignments to implement from the global office, Somphet and her staff generate ideas based on data and reports from the facilitators and mobilizers on the ground. At least once a month, field facilitators visit the 10-15 schools under their jurisdiction and report back on progress and efficacy. Somphet recalls that while she was originally unconvinced about the need for a literacy program, she changed her mind after personally conducting a survey in Oudomxay that revealed that many 3rd grade students could not read simple words despite passing the government's literacy tests. Solutions are always implemented with the local context in mind: Laos' unique culture, the different needs of each village or district. "My responsibility is to the children of my country first," said Somphet. "I will only implement programs that I know will help. If the global office gives me a suggestion and I don't think it will work, I always speak up. I'm not always right, but maybe there are things specific to my country that they don't know--and how will they know if I don't say anything?"

This emphasis on localized solutions is bolstered by RtR Laos' homegrown staff. Field facilitators and social mobilizers always live in the districts they work in, and every contractor and staff member is from Laos. Somphet explains that not only does this policy keep their costs down and retain local knowledge, but it also does its part to mitigate Laos' brain drain by providing well-paying and meaningful jobs within the country.

Of course, there are still many challenges down the road. Even if schools begin to set aside budgets for buying new books and supplies, many of the provinces do not have good book stores and travel to Vientiane is expensive and often difficult due to poor road conditions (stay tuned for our next blogpost for more on this!) Furthermore, there is a lot of work to be done at the secondary school level: while there are just UNDER 9000!! primary schools in Laos, there are only about 1200 primary schools. This means that for many students, continuing their educations suddenly means daily commutes to the next village or even dormitories, allowances, and separation from their families. This accounts for a drop in enrollment--almost 30%--that affects women disproportionately. "Our work is not very easy, but my staff is very good." Somphet said with a chuckle that revealed the extent of the understatement. Steadily and carefully, this team is strategically using resources from benevolent people like you to make small changes that will snowball into huge developments for Laos in the coming years. We're incredibly inspired by Room to Read Laos' dedication to creative local solutions for local problems, doing good work the right way, and ambitious undertakings: kawp jai, and sok dee!