Laos VCF

Jo from COPE

From Jo Pereira at COPE

View letter from COPE as a word doc.

Dear Red Spokes!

On behalf of the staff here at the rehabilitation centre and all the patients that your donations have helped I would like to say…

THANK YOU!!!

Over the past 2 years Red Spokes and its tour groups have been extremely generous to the project. This year, without support from you we would not be still going. The donation that Andy Hearn sent was at a critical time. The need for help is overwhelming at times but it means so much that a bunch of strangers arrive every few months on your tours and leave as supporters of COPE. Your passion for the country is tangible and seemingly infectious! So please keep coming to visit! A small amount of money can do so much here. A two thousand dollar donation can provide 40 lower limb prosthetics, 80 club foot treatments or feed a patient in our centre for 1666 days! It is this ‘cash’ which is hard for us to raise and is why we rely so much on support from people such as yourselves!  Many many thanks for your continued support and we look forward to welcoming you here again soon. Our visitor centre should be open in some form by the time you are scheduled to come through. With warmest wishes from Laos.

Ken Phet

From Ken Phetxaiphone kenny_phet@hotmail.com

Dear all

It has been a while that I have not contacted to you,. I was out of internet and just back today from the village. We are all keeping well, we had very great time in Lao New year and I am happy to say that the school building are now about 80% of completion.

I on behalf of all people  in Ban Faen from the youth  to the elders and all organizations in the community send our loves, best  wishes and sincere to all of you in the UK, especially all members in the LVCF Charity, all of your friends, family and relatives. Wishing  you all live long life with out difficulty in the life.

I have been asked to give some information about our village, Ban Faen. Ban Faen is located  on route 2 W, At km 96 on the way Oudomxay to Pakbeng or vice-versa with the population of 637, 150 Family and consisted of Main Lao(Laoloum)554 people; Minority(Laotherng/Kmu) 82 people and 1 Hmong person. The school has 5classes from year one to year five with about 200 students and five teachers. There is no running water and electricity in the village.

Ban Faen was found already three generations ago. “Ban” in the general meaning is “Village” and „”Faen” meant “Friends” or Lover .It is also a name of one type of tree in Lao which has fruit which we call “Makfaen”.

Mainly we work in the rice field and some do shift agriculture and corn growing with two crops per year and rice one crop a year. The first time that we had tourists in the village it was 2002 which was led by Mr Dermot MacWard, and it was the first tour I worked with Dermot.

We all value for all of your help and in this occasionally we would like to say thanks to all of you that have spent your patience working hard to help our community. We do hope all of your goodness will protect you from all evils. We also wish that we would meet you again  one day in the future….

With all the very best wishes.

Ken and People in  Ban Faen.

ken.