Taoi and Samoui are the two poorest and most remote districts of Salavan Province, among the 47 poorest districts in the country. According to the recently updated Participatory Poverty
Assessment of Laos, 87.1% of Taoi and 73.7% of Samoui people are poor, representing 20,744 and 6,253 people, respectively. The people there, mainly of Taoi, Katoh and Pakoh ethnicity, have almost no access to education, health, agriculture or other services. The majority of villages in Taoi do not have schools, water wells or government/NGO assistance or trainings of any kind. Taoi, Samuay, Saravan and Laongam District in Salavan Province were relatively untouched with UXO area. In recent years, these districts have become the target areas of large plantations, dams, and other projects. Because of the remoteness of the area, the government also prefers to move villages to the road to make it easier to provide services, to enable easier control, and to have an easier hand in exploiting relatively abundant natural resources. And when look into the children situation, the project found about the literacy rate is still approximately 10 percent across all minority ethnic groups. Many districts in Laos do not have enough kindergarten schools or primary school because the government does not have enough resources to implement childhood learning to all ethnic minority groups. Many children that do not have pre-school learning experience are more likely to repeat class that leads to dropout. According to Education policy of education Ministry is "in 2015 children must at least finished grade 5 in the Primary School level". There are more invest on school building, teachers training. The number of attended student to study in Primary School level increased; in 2011-12 there are 98% of Children on 6-10 years old for all country attended school. However in average the students in all country at the primary level still drop out school 12% and grade repetition still 18% as well. Lao governments recognize about the child rights, particularly child rights in education, but the government still lack of strategy for promote and clear system to make sure that all children able to access rights on education . Salavan Province is poor education of the country; there are 8 districts in total, the statistics from Provincial education service in 2011-12 is very clear to show problem of child rights on education is very low, past year situation on education in Salavan Province still cannot reach the goal of education, according to policy of education ministry is to solve this problem of education of children we have chance to improve system to promote learning of children because still many children cannot access education from the beginning. There are 30,409 Children on 3 - 5 years old in 8 districts, Salavan province but only some of children can accesses right for education. But there are only 3,955 children or 14.95% access the education. Kindergarten, group playing and pre-school, for 26,454 children or 85.05% in Salavan province don’t access any kind of learning skills even at home or early education. Not only for the access to education, but also the problem of nutrition and hygiene. The children who younger than five, both rural and urban areas are considered off-track to meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goal target (60 percent) each year. The lack of safe drinking water and sanitation puts a heavy health burden on the people of Lao PDR. Some 80 to 85 percent of diarrhea disease cases in the country results from poor sanitation and hygiene. Children are especially at risk, as poor hygiene levels lead to infestations and chronic malnutrition. Forty percent of children in Lao PDR exhibit stunting growth – in some rural areas the numbers are as high as 75-100 percent of children. Providing access to hygiene, sanitation and clean water is one of the key solutions to reduce infant and child mortality, as well as to reduce stunting in children. Poor sanitation and hygiene also have economic consequences for Lao PDR, as the many instances of waterborne diseases bring on additional expenditure for the families affected. They include spending on health care, loss of income or productivity due to illness, and the loss of value due to premature mortality. Overall, the country is estimated to lose more than US $193 million each year due to low levels of sanitation and hygiene. Thirdly, the poor sanitation conditions have adverse affects on many women: the risk of infection during pregnancy and childbirth is high, significant amounts of time are spent at home caring for sick children, or spent carrying water from surface sources to the home. The Lao People’s Democratic Republic has one of the highest consumption of rice per capita in the world. In rural areas, rice provides 80 per cent of calorie intake. Even the word ‘eat’ translates directly as ‘eat rice’.But while it is a rich source of energy, rice doesn’t contain all of the nutrients for adequate nutrition. An over-reliance on rice has left children here among the most undernourished in the region. Thirty-one per cent of children who are under 5 are underweight, and 48 per cent are stunted in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Malnutrition affects both the physical and cognitive development of children. More than one third of deaths of children who are under 5 years old in developing countries, like the Lao people’s Democratic Republic, are attributable to it. Child rights on education and health in Lao P.D.R only focuses on Primary School level (Children on 6-12 years old), for the children before 6 years old do not have a chance to access support to childhood process of learning. There are many children wait until primary school age because do not have learning system for them, recent there have a few village got school of kindergarten and mostly in the center of district or big town. ACD is planning to work with four districts in Salavan Province to develop “Education and health rights for children” curriculum to improve the childhood learning experience to help children create more opportunity for children to learn and grow properly. The curriculum will be implementing in Saravan, Laongam, Taoi, and Samoui Districts to support child rights on education and health with promote the participation of youth and children. The participation from child's family, youth group and community in support or promote education and health still not have an advice and support from ministry of education and Ministry of health. Even the youth are the future of the nation but still is the question for Laos, how to promote more participation of youth and parent to involve in promote the rights of themselves and their children.
