This is a very good idea.
Foreign news always pose bad news about Laos without any evident.
Invite them to come and see with their own eyes how peaceful Laos is.

If I have a lot of money, I want to invite Lao nok, I mean those who have negative images to Lao government to come and see. I don't know if they want to come or not, because Laos may have no Hamburger for them in the morning.

 you are right i agree with you , for those die hard lao nok who demand the tird party to go  to see. now what  are you saying .? i not surprise at all if they still have negative view about that . bc they just like to discredit lao gov.

Can someone please tell me where is Phalak Village?  By looking at the pictures, it must be far away from the city.  I guess the fastest way to get there is by helicopter.

Nice to see that Laos has helicopters that they are still using.

 

You may need some information from the report by the chief of Phalak village to the Quests as following:

Report by Mr. Lao Pao Xiong, Head of Committee,

Phalak  Development village. December 10, 2008.

 

Distinguished Mr. Yaseng, Head of Cabinet, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

Excellency Representatives of Diplomatic Corps and International Organisations

Distinguish Guests,

 

 

On behalf of the committee for the Development of Phalak village’s, I am pleased to welcome all representatives of Lao Government, Foreign Diplomatic Corps and International Organisations to visiting our Phalak Development village and have honour to report to you on the latest situation of our village as following:

 

 

1. General Information

 

            Phalak Development village was established on the will of Lao Government’s policy towards the illegal Hmong who were repatriated from Thailand and who nowhere to go as some of them did not have permanent residence and have sold out their home, land and belongings. The settlement of Phalak was built and opened on 11 May 2007 and is the first resettlement for Hmong returnee families. The location of the village is in the middle of Pong Lak, Phon-Ngam and Huay Phanla villages that are part of Ponglak special development area, Phalak is 28km West of Kasi city and is rich in farmland, forest and river “Lak” that is an ideal location for Hmong to be settled. As of today, Phalak has 100 houses with 76 households and total population is 462 people, including 217 females, 23 newborns (12 girls), people over 15 year old is 196, 100 females, 177 children of the school age  including 70 girls. Almost 90% of Phalak villagers were repatriated from Thailand.

 

2. The Spirit of the population

 

            At the first resettlement period, many people did not get used to the new habitat and environment and did not clearly understand the Government’s policy and directions for them to go therefore, we, Phalak Committee had educated and briefed them by referring to several important following document such as the Constitution and laws:

• Lao land is owned by all Lao people
• Multi ethnic solidarity
• How to prevent from ill-intentions by bad element
• Some articles of the Constitution and particularly articles on Lao citizen rights and duties
• Criminal Law
• Laws on Land, Forest, Environment, Property…
• Health and Sanitary Law
• 8^th Party Congress Resolution on Economic and Social development and some of its targets such as the eradication of Lao PDR from Least Developed Countries in 2020 and the Stopping of Slash-and-Burn cultivation by 2010;
• Instruction No. 09 of the Political Bureau, Central Committee of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party on whole rural development and particularly the development of special development area and measures,
• Vang Pao’s crime

 

            Phalak Committee also organized trips for a number of Phalak population to tour Vientiane capital for them to appreciate the level of development of the Nation and among other organized study trip for them to Houa Houaseua, Saysomboun district, Phathao village, Vangvieng district to allow them learn from other how to develop and empower themselves aiming at making them convinced of the correctness of the Government policy because the population there are also Hmong repatriated from Thai refugees camps in Vinay, Napho and Tham Krabok, Thailand in the early and mid 90s. In welcoming them here, the Lao Government is implementing its policy of settling the newly repatriated once for all and help them to have sustainable jobs and income.

 

            In addition to those activities, we also brought the elders of Phalak to surrounding villages of Kasy district to allow them to socialize with other and to strengthen solidarity with local population. Some of them were also brought up to Khoun, Xieng Ngeun districts of Luang Prabang to open up their mind on how other can live wealthily and develop their community in remote areas.

 

            From the above mentioned activities, the newly repatriated gained progressively confidence and start to believe in Government policy. They also expressed remorse for having wasted too much of their time and were angry against those who trafficked them to Thai camps. The activities also gave them will to develop, to produce and to start production activities with animal husbandry and agriculture. They also started to upgrade the standard home given to them and appreciate free life in living in good atmosphere of freedom, democracy, enthusiasm and joy to implement Government policy.

 

 

3. Living Conditions

 

            With special concern and care from the Party and State, the Government is providing the newly settlers with sufficient rice among other supply such as canned food, cloth, production tools, utensils, shelters, water supply and electrical network with free electricity for one year.

 

 

4. Health Situation

 

            By expressing their care and concern, the Ministry of Health, Vientiane province Health Service and Kasy district Health Centre have conducted several immunization campaigns for children and women and have appointed 3 permanent medical staff to Phalak. The Lao Government had also sent to Phalak medicines worth 70,000,000 Kips to treat the people if they are sick. On top of that, some villagers have been brought to Kasy hospital or Vientiane provincial hospital and sometime even in Vientiane capital.

 

            Thanks to the above mentioned activities the health of Phalak population is getting better and better each day. We also convinced the local to join Government insurance schemes which will give them free medical care.

 

 

5. Phalak Administrative Committee.

 

            As a new development village, the government as well as Kasi district, VientianeProvince, has been concerned on the social-eco development of the village. Therefore, the authorities have assigned officers and specialists to guide the people in this village. Those include:

 

-         3 committee members.

-         1 agriculture specialist from Vientiane province.

-         3 regular health practitioners.

-         7 primary school teachers.

 

The committee has improved the village structure such as, appointed head of the village, deputy head, village committee, construction front, women, village security, village arbitrator, improved their roles and obligations in order that they can be able to organize the implementation of social-eco development gradually, as well as guided them to life their lives peacefully and freely as spelt out in the constitution of the Lao PDR.

 

The committee has allocated agriculture land for individual family so that they can grow rice, corn and other cash crops including 25 ha of rice land, 5 ha of corn field, 5 ha of garden land which produces rice yield of 50.760 kg yearly, produces corn, grown 1.019 holes of sugar cane, 318 banana tree, 39 papaws, 2.887 holes of cassava, 164 orange trees, encouraged villagers to feed animal which now they have 4 castles, 10 goats, 33 pigs, 141 ducks, 303 chickens, 51 turkeys and 17 pigeons, leaded villagers to life healthily, promoted believed and non-believed in any religion, encouraged school age children to go to school. As of today, we have 177 students, 70 women. Moreover, we also introduced informal class which comprises of 41 adults, 9 women, encouraged villagers to participate in activities to improve their mutual assistances among neighboring villages without ethnic discriminations.

 

6. The investment of Vientiane province to develop PhalakVillage’s infrastructures.

 

A./ the completed project.

            1. Have built road access to the village values 11 billion Kip.

2. Explored and built houses in 15 ha and built 100 houses values

     1.4 billion Kip.

3. Expanded 2 KM of middle voltage and low voltage electricity to

     every house values 1.4 billion Kip.

4. Have built a 5 classrooms and 1 office school building, values $25.000.

5. Built village office or village hall, values110 million Kip.

6. Built a rice storage values 30 million Kip.

7.  Built a 50 m ³ water tank, 19 taps, 27 toilets, values 500 million Kip.

8.  Installed a loud speaker system, values 10 million Kip.

9. Installed TV satellite receiver and stereo system, values 15 million Kip.

10. Built an irrigation system, values 5 billion Kip.

 

            Total cost spending on develop Phalak village is 19.480 billion Kip. When compares to the investment in a developed country, the amount is a rather low. But, this amount is huge in a developing country.

           

            B./ The future project.

                        1. Complete road access in Punglak special zone.

                        2. Build two more irrigations to supply for 320 ha new and old rice field.

                        3. Explore new 115 ha of rice land.

`                       4. Build a secondary school at Punglak special zone.

                        5. Build a health care center for the village group.

                        6. Build a market.

                        7. Continue land allocation to villagers.

                        8. Expand telephone signal to the area.

 

7. Effective plans of the committee in the future.

 

1.      Continue disseminating propaganda of the laws and official document to the village aiming at improving their understanding the right direction of the government in social and eco development.

2.      Continue educating villagers so that they will not fall into trick trap from bad people which ending up in Thailand where their lives faced difficulties and had less opportunity. Encourage mutual assistance among the group and improve their household economy.

3.      Guide them in doing agriculture for sufficient food, push animal feeding as their capacity, access to services, plane fruit trees, and other cash crops.

4.      Preserve fine traditional of all ethnic groups, encourage school age children to go to school, introduce more informal classes to eradicate illiteracy, improve village management structures, identify roles and obligations to all organisations at village level to ensure that they organize their activities peacefully and independently as spelt out in the constitution of the Lao PDR.

           

            As above mentioned briefing report, I on behalf of the committee, villagers from Phalak, the government as well as Kasi district, VientianeProvince have put our effort, knowledge, and capital to invest in the development of Phalak infrastructures to upgrade their living standard and to gradually lift their life out of poverty. We are glad that we have completed our obligation that written in the constitution of the Lao PDR.

 

            Finally, I on behalf of the committee, Phalak villagers would like to thank Mr. Yaseng, Head of Office, Ministry of foreign Affairs, Phalak villagers wish the all of you good health and happiness and lead this country to the prosperity.

 

            Thank you ambassadors, international organizations for their friendly visit our village, we wish you healthy and happiness and hope that your presence in the Lao PDR will help maintain fine relationship between Laos and your country.

 

Thank you

 

See more photos of Ban Phalak
www.flickr.com/photos/dkj-hmong/1405147750
www.flickr.com/photos/dkj-hmong

dkj

I want Mr Lanexang to read this news

Thank DKJ for sharing the pictures and the efforts of the Lao Government extended to the Hmong returnee from Thailand  in resettlement Phalax, Paklak and PoungLax area. Can you tell me and give more explanation about the name of the Village , why  you offen use  and call  Special Zone or village ? I think, it is not good idea, special is means having some thing special in that area and it will be created some thing for our anemy try to come in , to write and make the negative refort about the government's policy. my suggestion is just call normal name  is existing  in the past  with out special word, it may better than Phalak special zone village . I alway support the Government policy accorded the multi- ethnic Lao people ( 49) , we should  be United forever


Lao is Lao