Focusing on inequality during poverty eradication week

Fourteen-year-old Anousone remembers scouring the jungle for food. He’d skip school and head into the wilderness, digging up bamboo shoots and picking leaves from edible plants.

After filling a basket full, he’d head home and start preparing dinner.  

For Anousone’s family of nine, there was often not enough money. The family relied on what they gathered in the forest and what little rice they might have harvested from their fields the year before.

Anousone’s father, Pern, a rice farmer, says the family’s lack of income often meant the children went hungry.

“It was very hard for us,” he says.

The family represents some of the thousands still living in poverty in Lao PDR.

It’s these families that the international community recognizes during the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty held every year on 17 October. In Lao, the day extends into a week.

In 2003, the Lao government declared October 17-24 as national week for Poverty Eradication. Since then, the occasion has been marked annually.

This year, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are focusing on growing economic equality.

“While many are now buying cars in Vientiane and urban life is bustling, those in the countryside are still struggling to put food on the table,” states Junus David, World Vision Laos Operation Director.

While overall poverty rates have declined by 40 per cent in the last 20 years, the country’s rapid economic growth has not benefited all equally.

Families like Anousone’s who live in remote or mountainous areas have seen continued poverty and few skills-based job opportunities are arriving in their area.

Not having money often means children miss school in order to help with necessary family chores. No access to money also means that when family members get sick, there is no income for medicine or transportation to the nearest health facility.

“When children are not able to get education or access health care, due to financial constraints, their future is jeopardized. They aren’t able to realize the same opportunities as other more financially secure children,” David added.

In order to promote more equitable growth across the entire country, international NGOs work alongside the government, United Nations (UN) agencies, and civil society. Together, poverty is tackled through community-based programmes.

Anousone’s family is one whose lives changed after the international NGO World Vision started working in his community. 

In 2005, World Vision set up a community development project in the District of Xieng Ngeun, where Anousone’s family lives.

The project started a food security programme to help villagers look for a way to overcome hunger. World Vision staff worked with families to teach them how to effectively raise pigs to earn more income. Training sessions taught farmers how to care for pigs, what to feed them, how to breed them and how to protect them.

Anousone’s father was one of the participants from the training who later borrowed money to buy 32 piglets. 

After raising the pigs for six to 12 months, Anousone’s family was able to sell several of the pigs for a total amount of 11,600,000 kip ($1,450 USD). They have already paid off their loan and still have six pigs at home.

“The money that we got from selling the pigs, we were able to use it to support our children to go to school, to build a house, to pay for the family’s basic needs and, with the leftover, buy more food for our pigs,” says Anousone’s father. “I am very happy that I am able to support my children to go to school and improve our family’s life.”

Anousone and his father are good examples of families who are able to escape the clutches of poverty.

According to the 8th National Congress in 2006 report, the number of poor people living in Lao has been steadily declining over the past five years. The Party determined directives and issued policies to address poverty reduction so that Lao can graduate from the UN’s list of least developed countries by 2020. By 2015, the government aims to have fulfilled all the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

According to the National Committee for Rural Development and Poverty Reduction report, the number of poor families decreased from 198,678 to 116,808 from 2011-2013. The demographic figures in relation to poverty have decreased from 40 to 27 percent. The poverty rate continued to fall between 2005 and 2010, from 28.7 to 26 percent, and the government expects the rate to drop to 15 percent by 2015.

And Anousone is a great example of how a family with enough income is able to invest in their children. Now, he attends school more regularly because he doesn’t have to search for food in the forest. And if he or his siblings get sick, they can go to a clinic for treatment.

“I am happy that I am able to attend school more regularly than before, and that our family has enough food to eat and that we have a good house constructed to live in. I want to thank you donors, government and World Vision for supporting our family to have a better life,” says Anousone.