Communique

The Humpty Dumpty Institute

Monthly Communique from Laos

August 2007

Channaly assists with the training of the
cooks in the school feeding program.

With funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food for Education program, the Humpty Dumpty Institute (HDI) is continuing to implement its landmine clearance and school rehabilitation project in Laos according to plan.

In July, the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) demining teams carried out clearance activities in 5 villages in Gnommalat District, clearing a total of 20 sites at (117,219 square meters, 285 UXO were destroyed or removed. 33 of the 40 emergency UXO clearance tasks were completed, leading to the destruction or removal of an additional 143 items.) In July, 34 sites were officially handed over, benefiting 171 people in agriculture and 95 people at the schools. The demining teams have now actually surpassed the project's initial demining objective, by clearing a total of 688,013 square meters.

The demining teams are continuing with sub-surface clearance of school perimeters to a depth of 25 cm in accordance with national standards and proposed land use. When land is handed over, the local communities are informed by MAG of the clearance depth and told what to do should deeper clearance depth be required.

The first shipment of food for the school-feeding program—19.991 MT of canned salmon—arrived on July 24th and was received by HDI's development partner, International Relief and Development (IRD). The economic and commercial officer from the U.S. Embassy in Vientiane handed over the shipment to a member of the Khammouane Provincial Cabinet. Additional shipments arrived throughout August. As part of the focus on schools, we have established Education Development Committees in the communities that will benefit from the school-feeding program.

The HDI Coordinator in Laos

This month's communiqué features 32-year-old Miss Channaly Manichanh, who is the HDI coordinator in Laos. She coordinates field activities with HDI's partners, MAG and IRD, the relevant Laotian government offices, and the U.S. Embassy in Vientiane.

She studied at the National University of Laos (Vientiane) and earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2000. She previous worked at Phongsaly Forest Conservation and Rural Development Project (funded by the European Union) for 4 years as a local assistant for microcredit, as an office manager with The Basic Education Development Project in Northern Communities and for the World Food Program on a school-feeding program. She joined HDI in February 2007.

Over the past few months, she has prepared the questionnaires for collecting information from the schools in the three districts covered by the HDI project. She also devoted one week to assisting IRD with the cooking training workshop for the Village School Feeding Committee members, which will ultimately benefit 10,000 schoolchildren at 50 schools.

For more information on HDI's work in Laos, please contact Dr. Robert Keeley, the HDI Laos Country Director, at Bob.Keeley@thehdi.org.