Project fully funded.

UNICEF NZ is enhancing girls’ education, by providing safe water and toilets in communities and schools as well as promoting good hygiene.

This five year project aims to bring these benefits to over half a million people in 1,540 villages, including approximately 140,000 children in 700 schools.

Laos is one of the poorest countries in the world. Many people do not have safe water to drink or toilets to use, and do not know about good hygiene. As a result many children die from diarrhoea, and many girls spend their time collecting water instead of going to school.

Supplying safe water and toilets in Laos

UNICEF NZ installed:

• 3,366 school toilets, including 1,517 especially for girls
• 2,533 family toilets, including 1,016 especially for girls
• 65 supplies of safe water for communities
• 46 supplies of safe water in schools

This directly benefited 54,454 rural people, and helped children stay in school and get a better education.

Learning about sanitation and hygiene can be fun!

UNICEF NZ has found fun ways to teach children in Laos about sanitation and hygiene. One way is through the Blue Box.

Designed especially for children, Blue Boxes include fun educational materials such as games, story cards, songs and posters which teach about the importance of drinking only clean water, using a toilet, washing your hands, healthy eating and food preparation methods.

We distributed Blue Boxes to schools and trained teachers to use them. But we didn’t stop there.

We taught 97 villages about hygiene through plays, stories, poems, songs, dances and games. As well as community activities and national contests, this included:

• 2,050 CDs with fun new songs about hygiene
• 866 youth-produced radio shows with messages about hygiene
• 216 children’s television shows
• 25 youth hygiene clubs
• National singing and poetry contests with hygiene as the theme

Like to help? Donate to a current UNICEF NZ project.