Matthew's Three Peaks Challenge!

As you know, this blog supports the Luang Prabang Orphanage in Laos.  Well, a lovely fellow called Matthew is climbing three mountains in Scotland hoping to raise money for the kiddies. He begins today and is hoping to be finished by Sunday.  

To explain what's happening, here's a note from Matthew himself:

 Matthew in The Lakes District, so 

you have to revisualise him in Laos! 

(Just think of Fiji with tuktuks and 

elephants and lots of monks 

in saffron robes and no eyebrows)

Dear friends,

Some of you may already be well aware that I ventured into Laos last November as part of my travels. Whilst I was there I saw some of the most amazing landscape scenery and sights you could ever wish to see. What is easy to overlook when you are landlocked in Laos is just how poor many of its people are, and as a result the children there have very little in terms of basic needs and an education. The things we all take for granted!

While I was in Luang Prabang, I did a fabulous cooking course (and let me tell you that I've cooked the minced chicken and rice noodle dish to death! It's now my specialty if I'm cooking to impress!)  

After the course, I spent some time talking with the Australian lady, Ruth, who runs it. She told me a little about her time in Laos and of the poverty she had experienced. As a result, she decided to try to do what she could to improve the health and education of the children of Laos in order to provide a better future for the children, their families and the Lao nation. She and Christine Seabrook set up Lao-Kids to raise money to support Lao children out of poverty. You can read more about their work at www.Lao-Kids.org.

Holding on to fond memories of my trip, and in the spirit of wanting to give something back I’ve decided to use my up and coming National Three Peaks challenge as an opportunity to raise money for Lao-Kids. These three peaks are Ben Nevis in Scotland, Scafell Pike in England and Snowdon in Wales. The challenge involves scaling and descending each peak (a total of around 3,000 vertical meters) and driving between the locations.  My challenge will run from Saturday 11th June to Sunday 12th June 2011.  See http://www.thethreepeakschallenge.co.uk/national-three-peaks-challenge/ for more information about the challenge.

I would be extremely grateful if you could sponsor me in my efforts. You can do this by visiting the Lao-Kids web site and making a donation via PayPal.      
Click HERE to be taken to the Lao-Kids web site for making your donation.

Note:  Please choose “Make a one time donation” and in the special instructions type “Matthew Joule Sponsorship”. Please don't worry if you don’t have a PayPal account, as you can make a donation via your debit or credit card. Every donation will be sent a Thank You Certificate, signed by the Director of the Luang Prabang Government Orphanages and Schools..

Many thanks for your valued support. The challenge itself, commencing on the 11th June, is going to be a tough one, but with the added incentive of your contributions I'm sure it will spur me on!
 
Kind regards,
 
Matthew Joule

ps. Here's a photo of me walking "Haystacks" in the Lake district last year, to give you an idea of what's going to take place!

 

 
        Thank you Matthew, you darlingest sweetheart!  

      

Update from Luang Prabang Orphanage.

Just heard from Luang Prabang Orphanage and the news isn't good.

The Entrance to the Orphanage.
And it's in Laos, by the way;
one of the poorest countries on earth.

The economic downturn has meant that fewer tourists are traveling to Laos and thus fewer people are using Ruth's book exchange and therefore there's a significant reduction in the money going to support the children at the orphanage.

One of the Orphans.
Such a little sweetie, isn't she?

It was barely enough even in the good times, and it's not anywhere near enough now.

If you read my post "Luang Prabang Orphanage For Michael" from January 5th this year, you'll know all about this set up - because our good friend German Michael asked that we check it out for him so he knew it was genuine so he could recommend it to various friends in Hong Kong, who were then looking for some project to fund-raise for, which turned out to be four new roofs for this orphanage - and that I shared the report with all of you who read my blog.


This request for your support is all genuine, folks. No scam happening here. You know me, Denise-the-Idiot, and hopefully you trust me ... and think me too stupid to be involved in anything underhand and sneaky. And you know Aussie Christine ...

The One and Only
Aussie Christine.

... who frequently features in these posts, and, if you go back to the earliest posts for this year, you'll know all about Christine's friend Ruth living there in Luang Prabang, trying to raise the money needed for the kiddies at the impoverished orphanage in a country where the corrupt government takes all the international donations.

Truly, folks, that's the reason why the money is all handled here in HK, to keep it out of the hands of corrupt government officials. Not anywhere near a scam, so please don't be cynical about it.

These are only a few of the kiddies
we're talking about here.

But here's the report for 2009 from the Orphanage:

As at December 2009, the Luang Prabang Government Orphanage School has 517 resident children, ranging in age from about 5 years old and up. This is an increase in numbers of more than 50 children this year.

Our role is to raise money in order to provide the children with items such as warm clothes, medicines, personal health items and extra food.

There are no administrative costs in the work we do. All coordination, purchasing, delivery, distribution, plus any other required activities in Luang Prabang is done by Ruth and her family. The web page, PayPal account and Thank You Certificates are all handled by Chris who is based in Hong Kong. Every dollar / kip raised goes to providing for the children.

We never just give cash - we always spend time discussing with the Director the needs of the orphanage and the children - and we then purchase and deliver it. Often this involves organizing every child in the orphanage to individually receive his or her set of supplies… as you can imagine, it’s a time-consuming task! But we need to do this to ensure that every child receives what they require and that no one misses out for any reason.

Please note that this year the amount of provisions we have been able to give the children has been much less than previous years. Tourism has been down by almost 50 percent and people are watching their cash-flow more closely. So we haven’t had enough money to meet our goals every month. For example, our November delivery was only 1 cake of soap, 1 tin of fish, one packet of noodles, two school notebooks and one pencil per child. It came to $US800.

Please tell your friends and family about the orphanage and its web site… maybe they would like to donate instead of giving gifts to each other for Christmas?

See http://www.lao-kids.org/Newsletter.htm for more details.

To everyone who has helped our work with the orphanage this year.. a HUGE thank you. And many good wishes for a safe, peaceful and prosperous 2010.

Luang Prabang Orphanage. For Michael!

Michael is interested in helping with raising funds for Luang Prabang Orphanage and asked me to check it out for him, so this post is for him. However, since the Orphanage desperately needs four new roofs, please take an interest too.

Michael, the place is way out of town and down a long, long road, but here's a shot of what you first see when you come to the Orphanage:

Guard post!
Sad to think it's necessary.

With your credentials checked, you then cross a rickety bridge over the river, walk up the hill ... where the first thing you come across is the kitchen:

Kids cooking lunch.

However, when Ruth first got involved, two decades back, the place looked like this ...

The original buildings.

... but since this is still where they house the overflow kids, these "Old Days" are not over.

These days, the place looks like this:

The new buildings.

Two decades ago, when Ruth first came across the place, the kids were half-starved and listless.
These days, they are all energetic and rowdy:

Girls soccer game!

It was a long hard road getting them from there to here. And, although she'd hate me for saying so, it was nearly all Ruth's work. She isn't connected with the Orphanage in any official capacity, but, with no funds coming in - see Fairy Tale post below - she couldn't help but get involved and so set up the LP Book Exchange; a business that directly funds this place. Since no other money comes in and it costs just over US$2000.00 a month to take care of the 500 orphans, Ruth is grateful for donations of books, so please, if you're going to Luang Prabang, bring any old books you have around the place as gifts for her.

US$2000.00 is an awful lot of money and it's difficult making it happen each month, but the kids are making themselves increasingly self-sufficient:

Growing their own food.

They also breed rabbits and fish farm, but I didn't get photographs of those.

Actually, the fish farm story is hilarious. A kindly Australian charity wanted to do something nice for the kids so built them ... a swimming pool! Do you love it? Like, here's people who have trouble raising money for food each month, yet somehow they're meant to also buy pool chemicals? Bizarre! However, the Orphange was grateful and thrilled but never told the charity the real reason ... and the moment the Australians backs were turned, they stocked it with fish ... and have been breeding them for food ever since.

The rabbits too were gifts given supposedly as pets, but ...

Hey, protein is protein! You get it where you can.

Although they live hand-to-mouth, mostly they cope except for when big problems arise. And the big problem currently is the roofs. The roof of the girl's dorm in particular isn't going to last much longer, as you can see in this photo:

Girls dorm.

And the boys' dorm is not far behind:

Boys dorm.

There are also two classrooms that aren't going to last the next rainy season but I don't have photos of those!

Ruth needs about US$16,000 to do all four roofs because she doesn't want to simply replace the corrugated iron with more iron because that only defers the problem. Her plan is for cement tiles, like in this photo here:

Modified Laos traditional roof tiles.

She has already raised the money once but this is Laos ... need I say more!

Michael wants to help. You can too. Just get in touch with Ruth at her Restaurant:

Tamnak Lao Restaurant,
Laneway opposite Villa Santi,
Luang Prabang,
Laos.

And then, once that is done, the next project will be getting mosquito nets for the kids ...

Sleeping quarters!
Mosquitoes are a problem,
particularly with the holes in the roof.

Are we up for that one as well?