HAPPY CHRISTMAS FROM LELC 2012

ALL AT LELC

SEND THEIR BEST WISHES FOR CHRISTMAS 2012

It's exactly one year from the day we started building

Today our School is 3 months old

TO ALL OUR STUDENTS SUPPORTERS AND FRIENDS

WE SAY THANKS



THE LEOT SCHOOL IS OPEN

 

 

Its the 28th October 2012 and much has happened since we threw the Centres doors open on the

1st October to start our FREE English language school in Luang Prabang

We planned to start classes with a  minimum of 80 and a maximum of 110 pupils.
 

We have been inundated by the number of students that want to join us and have already increased the number of classes we run so that today we have 130 students.

Even now we have a steady stream of pupils enquiring about joining our classes.
 

Why not read our story in our first news letter at

 

http://www.lelclaos.org/newsletters/LELCNewsOct2012.PDF 

 

The file may be a bit big if it wont open just copy and paste the address and enter it into your browser

 

 

A new LELC student introduces himself to the class

LEOT OPENS A SCHOOL

Our project was born in England back in 2010 when our Chair Alan announced that he had a good idea. Little did we know the journey we would take. The initial plan was to rent a building on a short term lease and start an English Learning Centre.

Over the next year we found the difficulty of being an overseas NGO made the prospect of renting a building very uneconomic. We reviewed our plans and started looking for land. A suitable plot was found in Ban Phanlouang a village on the Knam Khan river in the historic town of Luang Prabang.

Extended negotiations took place to select a local builder and worked started on Christmas day 2011.

Today is the 16th September 2012 and a landmark day for LEOT with the official opening of the LEOT English Learning Centre.

The picture shows Alan our founder and Chair making the initial speech.

Sitting on his right we are delighted to welcome the Laos Deputy Director of Home Affairs. 

We decided that the opening of our school by the symbolic cutting of a ribbon had to be completed by an existing LEOT scholarship student.

In true democratic tradition we put all our students names in the hat at our recent BBQ in England

We are delighted that Sisaveth was chosen for the important job of cutting the ribbon and opening the doors..

The opening of the school was followed by a traditional Bacci

A celebration meal sponsored by a LEOT donor

A good time was had by all

THANKS TO OUR WALKERS

Its been an astonishing week travelling from Luton to Scotland and back via Scarfell Pike and Snowdon.

I'm amazed at the courage of our walkers to complete their challenge against many problems

In many ways their determination replicates the day to day life of many LEOT students who work through many adversities to obtain an education

 

WE CONGRATULATE

 

Azmon Rankohi

Su-anne Kirby

Misbah Khan

Eyvind Andresen

Charmaine McQueen-Prince

Caroline Lynch ( Our Driver)

 

Your kindness and determination has raised £4500 for the LEOT Learning Centre

 

We Salute your efforts

 

 

The LEOT 3 Peaks Champions

BBQ NEWS

It was great to have such a great turn out for the BBQ

We enjoyed a great jazz band and the kids had fun and games on the Bouncy Castle.
A big thanks to all who came and shared the day with us

I am pleased to report that we raised over £2000 on the day.

The proceeds will go towards the running costs of The New LEOT School in Luang Prabang.

The LEOT School in pictures

Buying land & planning the building

Starting work & blessing the school



Up go the walls

Adding the roof & the first management board meeting



The finished building.

Many thanks to our team of builders

Packing for a visit

It's going to be a busy week as I rush to clear my desk to allow time for a quick visit to Laos.

I had hoped to stay in both Vientiane and Luang Prabang to have a chance to meet all our students.
Sadly time is short. I really want to catch up on building progress and have time to meet so many people.

I leave Heathrow on Friday night for the long flight to Bangkok and after a quick stop over and a two hour flight on to Luang Prabang.
With the time difference the journey takes nearly two days.



Chair Alan will be in town together with Touy who is managing the school project. Hopefully our Homeland Director will have time to spend a day with us.

Meeting our students is always a highlight and many will be able to join us for a meeting at Joys.
Without the help of personal sponsors and general funding from LEOT many would not afford their courses. Even with our help many students also have at least two part time jobs to fund their living costs.

Many thanks yet again to the ladies of Heath and Reach WI. I've got a complete case of jumpers to give out to poor children in local villages. Thanks also to Barclays Bank who have provided boxes of pencils and pens for local schools.



Alan is hopeful we should also find time to visit a small village about an hour outside Luang Prabang which was the home of Kheak a LEOT student. They have a brand new school built by world vision. Sadly it is short of a water supply as the underground pipe has been damaged. We hope to meet the village head man and assist with the repair project.

Look out for more posts on my visit

See you soon


Peter

My friend likes swimming

Three Peaks Challenge

We thank Trustee Claire and her friends for accepting the challenge to make The Three Peaks Challenge.

To achieve their target they must scale the three tallest mountains of England, Scotland and Wales in just 24 hours.

The task is made more difficult in that one peak has to be climbed at night and the peaks are geographically a total of 500 miles part

Our team has kindly accepted a second challenge to raise the sum of £10,000 to contribute to the running costs of The LEOT School.

Our team met for their first training day this weekend.

The initial task was at Pegsden and to walk a distance of about 15km.

Many LEOT students have no access to transport and undertake a similar walk to attend school each day.

Clearly navigation is a major issue.

The team spent much time discussing old style maps as their Tom Tom navigation systems said they had left the national road system

The walk finished with a debrief at the local pub to discuss the future training plans and to massage injured feet.

Many thanks to the team. We will follow you over the next few months as you build up to your Challenge. 

Taking Shape

Its the end of February and we have passed another milestone with 40% of the fabric of the building complete

The pictures tell the story. The walls of the building have reached roof height. The top ring that will support the roof trusses is taking place.

Our special thanks go out to our team of builders and LEOT staff Teng & Touy.

We still have a fantastic amount of work to complete for the building to be completed in about three months.

The Trustees are meeting to discuss progress to date and the important task of finding a School Director and team to support him.

Trustee Claire is planning a massive fund raising event. Her team of walkers is having an organised training walk preparing for the daunting task of climbing The Three Peaks in only 24 hours. They have set the massive task of raising £10000 from their event

We are always delighted to show visitors around our project. The picture shows Touy with the first of a number of visitors who came to site in February

Not all visitors have been tourists. We would like to introduce you to a small friend who called round the other day

All Shook up

Progress continues at a pace in Luang Prabang

The LEOT Language School  is really taking shape

LEOT Contract Manager Touy lends a hand to the builders!!!

and has got

All Shook Up



9th February 2011

I am pleased to say we are making great progress and our thanks go to our builders and Touy for all their hard work.

All ready we can see the shape of the building. The foundations are in. The walls are shooting up and are being fitted with window frames

 

In the last blog we showed a picture of our builders having a good home made meal.

It looks like they have very fresh eggs

Site hen house

Thanks guys for doing a good job

The start of building

The project started with the arrival of materials

You can see Touy busy organising

The site office has already been built it will be home for several of our builders

Shuttering has been put up and columns are being cast

No take aways on site our builders have their own kitchen for making meals

Its heavy work as the pillars are cast and foundations are laid

Our signs up inviting people to come and watch the building

Christmas Day 2011

The 25th December was a very special day for us in Luang Prabang when a blessing ceremony was held at the start of building The LEOT School

Monks blessed The Spirit Column (Central pillar of the building)

They were joined by members of LEOT and the local community

Part of the Baci ceremony



A monks blessing

Alan & Touy give thanks to the monks

The day was one of religious celebration and hope.

But like all Laos festivals finished with a party until dusk



Selecting our Contract Manager



Phattana Manivong

It was decided at an early date that it was essential for LEOT to play an active role in the construction of our school.
We decided that this could be done best with the appointment of a contract manager to liase with our builders.
The ideal candidate was soon found. Touy was a LEOT student and had been sponsored by us to complete a diploma in English at a local college. He is now completing advanced studies at the Rattana Business school.
Touy accepted this new challenge with relish and was soon busy establishing a temporary office in the CCC building in the centre of town.

The new LEOT project office gets a lick of paint by Touy in his new office in the CCC building on Luang Prabangs main street

Mooving in the furniture

Nearly ready to start work

Finding our builder

We have all heard the stories of cowboy builders in the UK.
We were quite daunted at finding a builder in Laos with both cultural and language difficulties.
It was important to find a reliable firm that we could trust and we were confident would do a good job. We wanted to use local Laos labour and make sure we avoided the exploitation of child labour.

With all this in mind a detailed specification was commissioned and with the help of Teng our Homeland Director invitations to tender were sent out to local firms.

We were delighted to receive seven detailed responses of which three were produced to a very high standard.

A committee was formed to meet with our short listed builders and we spent a very busy week discussing our plans and seeing examples of buildings completed by each contractor.

One firm impressed us most with their professionalism and the quality of their work. They had completed work on a number of projects for the public sector including the refurbishment of a school in central Luang Prabang in the heritage style.

Our minds were made up and we entered negotiations with Phonexay Constructions. Discussions lasted several days and we were grateful to Trustee Claire who drafted the contract for us

Chair Alan signs contract at Phoneyays office

 We had reached our next mile stone.

We were ready for the difficult job of building.

The Plans

The School is being built in the World Heritage zone of Luang Prabang.
The design we chose is in harmony with the buildings in the village and is of a traditional Laos design.
It is functional with three large class rooms and a study/library.
We plan to extend our syllabus to include computer studies.
The building has a dedicated library area for private study and reading.
It will become the focal point for IT study as we develop the curriculum.

We are pleased that our architect has added touches of Laos artistic design that will give the traditionally red tiled roof a heritage appearance
Laos craftsman show their skills through the use of capentry skills.

Site Plan of LEOT School

Map shows Nam Khan River in Ban Phuluang Village