Plan Laos’ Country Strategic Plan (CSP) is based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and works to ensure that all children have the right to survival, development, protection and participation, with an emphasis on full and equal inclusion of girls and members of ethnic groups.

 

In the poorest districts of Bokeo Province, where Plan Laos works, children, especially girls, face many difficulties. Only a minority of children complete primary education – indeed, many girls never enter primary school at all – and educational quality is often low. Almost 40% of young children are malnourished. More than half of the villages do not have a safe water supply and very few communities have safe sanitation facilities. Many small, scattered villages lack proper health units and children are exposed to violence in their homes and communities.

 

 

Plan Laos’ goals are to: 

 

• Give children the best possible start in life. 
• Realise children’s right to quality and continued education. 
• Ensure children grow up in healthy environments. 
• Realise children’s right to protection from abuse, neglect and mistreatment. 
• Support children in their active participation in their communities and in decision-making processes.

 

Plan Laos has been operating since 2007 and, at this early stage of strategy implementation, the steps we are taking are promising to yield great improvements in children’s lives.

 

We are working with communities and local government to establish quality early education infrastructure  - especially preschools and in the future, community playgroups for smaller, isolated villages. 

 

Our programmes are progressing towards expanding and improving the quality of primary education and ensuring girls, in particular, complete lower secondary education. Plan Laos will assist the Ministry of Education to make its ‘school of quality’ policy a reality. This policy stresses full and equal participation of girls, members of all ethnic groups and children with disabilities, with the effect of preventing violence in schools and communities. 

 

Future areas of work will focus on water, sanitation and hygiene, including the piloting of ‘Community Led Total Sanitation’ approaches which have been hugely successful in other Plan-supported communities.