Gravity Flow Water System
February 2020
Ban Na San, Luang Prabang
On this mission we visited three different provinces to provide basic humanitarian aid. Thanks in part to the LACF group in Fresno who donated $5,000 towards families affected by the flood in Savanakhet we were able to provide clean water filter units to the families. In Salavan and Savanakhet provinces we delivered water filter units to 209 families to four villages. In addition, we also handed out dental/hygiene family kits, donated to us by two young American boys, Connor Draper and James Palmer, from the Boy Scouts program. A donor and volunteer, Liberty Himphayvanh from Hawaii, also traveled with us and contributed school uniforms and educational supplies to elementary school aged students. In Attapeu, we visited families who were displaced by the dam flood and still living in refugee camps. We provided them with Lao cooking ingredients and cash to buy necessities they need.
Getting to these villages in the other provinces from our base hub in Pakse (Champasak province) is by no means easy and fast. It can take up to nine hours to reach our final destination. That long drive can be very arduous and treacherous along unpaved dirt roads with giant potholes. But in the end that long journey is all worth it when we see the beautiful and eager faces of the children and their families. Some even come by themselves while their parents stay behind to hunt and forge for food. When we know the villagers hiked three hours down several mountains to reach the village meeting point (and hiking 4 hours back with the heavy and bulky filter units) it makes us realize that our own difficult road to get to them was nothing comparatively.
