Nestled near Vanglek and Hatnam villages of Pha Oudom District, Bokeo Province, Laos, the Nam Tha 1 Hydropower Plant invested by China Southern Power Grid (CSG) lights up the northern regions of the country with stable and continuous green power.
Headlines on the country's national channel on June 2, 2022, reported that on June 1, International Children's Day, staff members at Nam Tha 1 Lao Power Company Limited on behalf of CSG visited the China-Laos Friendship School in Vanglek village, where they organized an education-aid activity. They sent five desktops and four printers, nearly 900 books and about 1,500 teaching supplies to two schools in Vanglek and Hatnam villages.
Located in northwestern Laos, a remote region of the country, 70 percent of Bokeo is mountainous terrain. Children at Vanglek and Hatnam of Pha Oudom are eager to study but until recently only a simple and crude shanty served as their school room. Headteacher Modthanoy Seansulin, who came to teach at the school in 2012, said that the school had an extremely poor condition at that time with a hollowed structure that could not resist even rain. Students had to stop study once because of a broken beam. The schoolhouse at that time could no longer satisfy basic teaching needs.
The villagers' longing for a new schoolhouse raised the Chinese energy enterprise's concern. After communication with the provincial government, a decision was made that CSG would build two China-Laos friendship schools for the two villages.
"Children has been yearning for bright classrooms with flat blackboards and a campus with a football pitch and flag platform. The day finally came," the headteacher said with excitement. The new school is built on a flat ground alongside a road, with a beautiful and vast campus and abundant teaching facilities. All kinds of education supplies, and even a kindergarten, can be found in the new school.
Views of the old and new schools of Vanglek Village [Photo provided to sasac.gov.cn]
Compared with other schools nearby, the new schools at Vanglek and Hatnam have obvious advantages in teaching conditions, and have attracted many students from other villages. At present, the student number of the schools has increased from 70 to more than 120.
The Dok Champa is the national flower of Laos, symbolizing holiness and nobility. The beautiful flowers are also grown in some southern regions of China that adjacent to Laos. To commemorate the ties between China and Laos based on the flower, CSG named the education-aid practice "Dok Champa" activity.
(Executive editor: Li Zhiyong)
