Meuang Kang School Project-Laos Community Development Initiative

Cumming School Of Medicine
University of Calgary

For more than 25 years, the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine has supported the Laos University Health Sciences Faculty of Medicine in various ways including the development of a Family Medicine Specialist training program with the goal of improving rural health in Laos. The first leader of this project, Dr. Clarence Guenter, encouraged the members of the Calgary team to look for other opportunities to support the communities in which they taught. In 2009, Typhoon Ketsana devastated southern Laos and our planned medical education trip became a typhoon relief endeavour. As a result, the Meuang Kang School rebuilding effort was launched. The University of Calgary endorsed the creation of the non-profit Laos Community Development Initiative, LCDI, and so we began.

Over the past 15 years, primarily using funds donated by Calgarians, we have recruited and now support 3 schools in Laos’ Champassak Province, along the Mekong River, and one on the Bolavan Plateau. This is a collaborative effort with the principals and staff of the schools, as well as with the families of the students and the village leaders. Regular meetings allow the communities to identify their priority needs, develop budgets and detailed invoices and present them to our team for consideration. Over time, the villagers have undertaken to do much of the physical labour required to build or repair the school, at a tremendous cost saving.

Ms. Noy Mettasak Phosanarak, the owner of the Pakse Hotel, our home away from home, is the manager of the project. She buys the requested supplies, provides the money for construction and renovations, oversees the work, liaises with the bank, and keeps meticulous records of financial interactions. She visits all the schools, which are an hour and a half away from Pakse, sometimes accessible only by boat, on a regular basis.

Meuang Kang, Sisaveng, and Batoum Panon Schools, all located within a kilometer of each other, have been designated “model schools” by the Laos government, a great honour. They are seen as providing an enriched education and exemplary community support. The villages and families around the school benefit from the project sourcing materials from their stores, internet access, computers, electricity, clean drinking water, a community centre built on the school property, financial support for the volunteer teachers, and provision of school supplies, sports equipment and uniforms for their school children. Over the past 15 years, over $115K USD has been injected into the local economy by this project.

Our newest school, Kilometer 40 Elementary School, is northeast of Pakse, on the Bolavan Plateau, in coffee country. It is run entirely by women, a novelty in Laos, and required renovations, a new classroom and activity building, as well as school supplies, uniforms and sports equipment.

U of C medical students, residents and staff physicians have been part of the team over the years and have benefitted from the exposure to the realities of life in rural Laos. In addition to teaching medical topics to residents, nurses, doctors and other health care providers as part of the Family Medicine training program, they get to help in the children’s classrooms and see first-hand the benefits of our involvement in the communities.

We hope to continue to raise funds and support these and other school for many years to come. It has changed the lives of the people in these communities in immeasurable ways.

LCDI Meuang Kang Schools Update 2024

Past Reports:
LCDI Report 2023
LCDI Report 2022
LCDI Report 2020
LCDI Report 2019
LCDI Report 2018
LCDI Report 2016
LCDI Report 2013-2014

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Meuang Kang School Project-Laos Community Development Initiative

Cumming School Of MedicineUniversity of Calgary

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Cumming School Of Medicine
University of Calgary