Lack of hygiene is perhaps the most serious issue facing rural villagers in Laos, from lack of education and access to clean water. Contaminated water throughout rural areas is the common cause of diarrhea plus short term and long-term sickness along with other crippling diseases which demand a major portion of villagers' meagre average income of $2,150 per year to be spent on healthcare.
Adopt A Village in Laos (AAVIL) is a Not-For-Profit Canadian Registered Organization, incorporated in 2010. Its primary purpose is to raise financial support for clean water and education. Water projects bring permanent water into villages, hygiene training with water filter distribution and hygienic toilets. Education includes the construction of schools/classrooms where none exist or where current schools are simply not adequate for learning plus sponsorship of poor children who would not be able to go to school without help.
Steve Rutledge, a member of the Rotary Club of Whitby in Ontario, is founder and President of Adopt a Village in Laos. On September 12, 2024 Steve visited Rotary Club of Ladner, a long time supporter of AAVIL and sometimes provider of volunteers, to give an update on the program.To date, AAVIL has completed 12 school construction projects, dozens of toilets, 21 water source projects including a hospital, taught hygiene courses and provided water filter systems to over 38,000 residents across more than 70 villages plus, schools and hospitals. It has also sponsored secondary school children and university students and completed a host of smaller projects including solar panels and light kits for a very rural village.
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This video shows how remote and challenging to access some villages of Laos are and the development of water delivery systems over several kilometres -- water, still contaminated, then clean and made potable with AAVIL water filters, 8,000 distributed to date.
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| Steve Rutledge receives $3,000 as Rotary Club of Ladner's latest donation to Adopt A Village Laos from Chris Offer and Mike Storey, who have both served as water filter delivery volunteers in past years, in Laos, and club President David Rushton |
Laos is the only country in Southeast Asia that is completely landlocked, surrounded by the countries of Myanmar, China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. With no access to a port, imported products are usually too expensive to purchase. As a result, most villages live off subsistent farming (mostly rice) and from natural foods found in the forest, albeit, not very nutritious.
Laos is the most heavily bombed country per capita in the world, a result of the ‘Secret War’, part of the Vietnam War, which killed one third of the population. Of the bombs continually dropped on the country up to 30% did not detonate, leaving an estimated nine million in their soils. Economic recovery has been slow.