Health
BUILDING HEALTHY COMMUNITIES
Health is at the very core of much of the world’s poverty and suffering. ADRA Laos works with women, men, and children through evidence-based, community-driven, family-centered, sustainable health interventions.
We adopt a community-level approach to address the unique needs of populations by improving health behaviors, reducing malnutrition, building the capacity of health professionals and improving the quality of health resources and facilities.
Beyond the community level, ADRA works to strengthen healthcare systems by supporting health centre-district-provincial-national-level health staff to improve the quality of services through Reproductive Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health and Nutrition approaches.
Water is a basic human need, yet 785 million people around the world lack access to clean water. Frequently, accessible water is contaminated, infecting people with waterborne diseases responsible for 1.5 million deaths a year. Children are the most vulnerable: 90 percent of deaths caused by diarrheal disease are of children under the age of 5.
ADRA Laos has been addressing these issues for the past 30 years, installing filters that clean contaminated water, digging wells, and constructing community and household gravity fed water facilities that are accessible for people with disability and the elderly. Village Water Committees are also established to ensure funds are collected for any ongoing maintenance or future upgrades that may be needed.
ADRA also educate communities about good hygiene and sanitation practices, supports construction of latrines, and encourages villages to become open defecation free.
More than 820 million children, women, and men in the world today are hungry. They are the victims of natural disasters and climate changes, the unemployed living in urban slums, the landless farmers tilling other people’s fields, the widows of war, and the orphans.
ADRA Laos has been implementing targeted nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive programming since 2013 in Lao, Khmu, and Hmong villages focusing on reproductive women and children under the age of 5.
Approaches include anthropometric testing, growth, monitoring and management, Positive Deviant Hearth, family nutrition and diet diversification, integrated home visits, clean home gardens and WASH interventions.
CURRENT PROJECTS
CLOSED PROJECTS
PARTNERS: Canadian Foodgrains Bank, ADRA Canada, Xienkghuang Provincial Health Department, Phoukoud District Health Office
LOCATION: Xiengkhuang Province
IMPACT AREAS: Hunger and Nutrition, Women, Girls and Gender, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, Animals and Agriculture
The Enhanced Nutrition and Health for Upland Phoukoud (ENHUP) project is being implemented in 16 Lao, Hmong and Khmu villages in Phoukoud District, Xiengkhuang Province from 2017-2020. ENHUP’s ultimate goal is to improve nutrition for at least 10,780 household members, particularly pregnant and lactating women and children under 2 (the first 1000 days of life).
ENHUP’s team are partnering with Provincial and District Health staff, local health centre staff, Lao Women’s Union, and village health volunteers to implement community-wide awareness raising on nutrition and disease prevention and treatment. An adapted PD/Hearth rehabilitation feeding session has also been conducted for 12 days with malnourished children under 2 and 5 alongside quarterly growth monitoring and promotion visits and home visits to pregnant and lactating mothers and CU5 households. 6 water facilities have also been rehabilitated and permaculture home gardens have been established in 15 villages.
Results from 2017 to 2019 are showing significant reduction in acute malnutrition from baseline of 10.4% to 3.2% and underweight from 24.9% to 17.4%.
PARTNERS: HELP International, GBG Global Fund for Development, Deseret International Charities, Xienkghuang Provincial Health Department, Phoukoud District Health Office
LOCATION: Xiengkhuang Province
IMPACT AREAS: Hunger and Nutrition, Women, Girls and Gender, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
In 2017 ADRA together with HELP International Redlands and private donor, Mrs Watts, partnered with Phoukoud District Health Office to provide funds to double the size of the e-Centre for Health meeting room which can now seat 60 people. This room is now utilized much more widely and can cater for weekly meetings and regular health training activities.
In 2018 ADRA then partnered with HELP International, GBG Fund for Global Development, and Deseret International Charities to upgrade and extend the Yortpair Health Centre compound. The existing Health Centre and Staff Housing were renovated; a new mothers and children’s ward, birthing suite, external latrines and a water tank were constructed; and new MNCH equipment and beds were purchased.
PARTNERS: Canadian Foodgrains Bank, ADRA Canada, Oudomxay Provincial Health Office and Houn District Health Office
LOCATION: Houn District, Oudomxay Province
IMPACT AREAS: Hunger and Nutrition, Community Health, Animals & Agriculture
The Oudomxay Nutrition and WASH Advancement for Rural Development (ONWARD) project was implemented in 16 Lao and Khmu villages of Houn District, Oudomxay Province between 2013-2017.
ONWARD aimed to improve the nutritional status for 7,500 household members, including 3,560 women, particularly women of reproductive age and children under 5. Some activities included Training of Trainers support to District Health Office counterparts, village awareness raising of good nutrition and hygiene practices, establishment of village nutrition groups and water committees, construction of community gravity fed water systems and sanitation support using the CLTS approach, and establishment of permaculture home gardens.
To support the women from 10 Khmu villages of ONWARD, ADRA sourced additional funds for a 12 months adult literacy program. The Improved Learning for Ethnic Minorities to Advance Development (ILEAD) was implemented in 2015 with private funds from ADRA UK to improve basic literacy and numeracy in Khmu women.
PARTNERS: BMZ, ADRA Germany, ADRA international
LOCATION: Luang Namtha Province
IMPACT AREAS: Community Health, Wash Sanitation & Hygiene
The WASH for Health project was implemented in Luang Namtha Province and assisted more than 4,000 individuals between 2009-2012.
The goal of the project was to improve the health of the families in the target communities by improving access to potable water and family latrines coupled with positive health behaviour changes through regular health promotion.
Main Activities:
- 77 community and 18 school health promotion sessions conducted along with 27 community and 9 school mobile clinic days.
- 12 water systems for 9 communities and 3 schools constructed.
- 510 hygienic and culturally sensitive latrines (486 village and 24 school).
Basic awareness of good health practices is very low in remote ethnic communities in Luang Namtha Province and poverty can be directly connected to access to clean water and sanitation. WASH for HEALTH aims to break this cycle by addressing needs caused by health and hygiene problems related to water and sanitation. Flow-on effects of the reduction in waterborne disease such as intestinal parasites and diarrhoea means that food nutrients can be utilised and absorbed more effectively, and people can be more effective in physical labour to produce food. Health education, promotion and improved access to potable water and latrines is vital to empower the communities to make healthy lifestyle choices.
PARTNERS: Bloomberg, International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease
LOCATION: Vientiane Capital
BUDGET: $178,250 USD
ACTIVE: April 2010 to September 2011
BENEFICIARIES: Direct – 1 million (viewers of national TV campaigns and national radio), Indirect – 6 million (citizens of Laos through Provincial and national dissemination and affect)
IMPACT AREAS: Community Health, Advocacy
In 2009 ADRA was successful in supporting the government to pass a new Tobacco Control Law through its highest decision-making body, the National Assembly. However, passing the law is not enough. The country now has the tough job of putting this new law into practice and then implementing it according to the government’s plan and resources. As such, Ready, Start, Law!, will work on two fronts: supporting the government in their implementation, and building public support for the law.
Main Objective: Support the Government and key partners’ capacity to implement the new tobacco control law in its entirety. Raise public awareness of the law and the harmful effects of tobacco use by working closely with the media to foster support for the law.
Main Activities:
- ensuring the Law is signed by the president;
- ensuring tobacco control implementation Guidelines are developed, approved and disseminated to all relevant parties as soon as possible;
- facilitating dissemination of the law and accompanying workshops at National and Provincial level across the country, including training of implementation and enforcement;
- facilitating monitoring of law compliance and enforcement
- national level public awareness campaigns through mass media and event organisation
PARTNERS: Bloomberg Philanthropies, International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease
LOCATION: Vientiane Capital
BUDGET: $151,683 USD
ACTIVE: 1 August 2019 to 31 March 2010
BENEFICIARIES: Direct: Athletes, Spectators, Officials of the SEA Games
Indirect: Televised event viewers, nation-wide
IMPACT AREAS: Community Health, Advocacy
- Assert the rights of the athletes and attending general public in having complete protection of their health during their time in Vientiane city;
- Ensure that all venues (both training and competition venues) to be used in the 2009 SEA Games are smoke-free and will not allow the sale and promotion of tobacco products in any form; and
- Ensure that all public outdoor venues, including spectator arenas, the athletes’ quarters, restaurants, as well as all forms of transport at sites where events occur will be declared smoke-free areas.
- Produce mass media campaigns across TV, Radio and Print to raise awareness of the general public to the tobacco control law.
PARTNERS: Bloomberg Philanthropies, International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, Tobacco Free Kids
LOCATION: Vientiane Capital
BUDGET: $99,830 USD
ACTIVE: 1 August 2017 to 31 July 2009
BENEFICIARIES: Nation-wide population
IMPACT AREAS: Community Health, Advocacy
Planning and Legislating Tobacco Control in Laos (PALTCIL). The tobacco epidemic is one of the greatest public health challenges in the Southeast Asia region. One in four of the deaths that occur from the effects of tobacco occur in this Region. Although there have been no national surveys on tobacco use in Lao PDR, estimates suggest that 59% of males and 13% of females smoke. Smoking’s effects usually fall disproportionately on the poor. This project is fighting to bring Tobacco Control to Lao PDR, from being one of the last countries in the world where no tobacco control law exists.
Main Objective: Strengthen the work of the Lao Ministry of Health’s Tobacco Control Taskforce (TCT) in developing a strategic approach to implementation of the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC). Strengthen and mobilize the existing local Lao network for tobacco control through provision of knowledge, expertise and resources.
Main Activities:
- Develop a TCT five-year strategic plan to extend tobacco control in Laos.
- Develop national legislation for comprehensive tobacco control that is approved by the National Assembly by the end of the project.
– Advertising bans
– Health warnings
– Restrictions on sale
– Smoke-free places
– Enforcement and penalties - Develop both a physical and online resource center at ADRA Laos, with resources in Lao and English, to provide technical assistance to policy makers.
- Establish a Tobacco Control Working Group (TCWG) for Laos, composed of government and non-government representatives and key stakeholders, that meets at least monthly to support the TCT in the achieving the above objectives.
- Develop a policy paper that presents the context, purpose and benefits of the draft legislation.
- Build the capacity of tobacco control stakeholders in Laos
PARTNERS: Tobacco Free Kids
LOCATION: Vientiane Capital
BUDGET: $47,448 USD
ACTIVE: 1 August 2008 to 1 July 2009
IMPACT AREAS: Community Health, Advocacy
In order that the tobacco control law is considered and approved by the National Assembly in 2009, the draft tobacco control law must obtain approval from the Cabinet in September 2008. To facilitate this movement, intensive advocacy activities with policy makers and parliament members must be done during this time. Media advocacy is also needed to make tobacco control law a public agenda obtain public support to the law.
Main Objectives: The goal of this project is to advocate for the adoption of Lao draft Tobacco Control Law by 2009 by:
- The media show full support of the approval of tobacco control law and regularly publicize about the law and its positive impact to public health.
- The Cabinet approves the draft tobacco control law by September 2008
- The National Assembly approve Tobacco Control Law by end of 2009
Main Activities:
- Five advocacy meetings for National Assembly member. The objective of these advocacy meetings is to ensure support and to address any interference from the Tobacco Industry. A total of 5 meetings will be conducted: 3 in the capital Vientiane, 1 in the North and 1 in the South).
- Advocacy activities with National Assembly members. ADRA Lao and Tobacco Control Task Force will develop key and strong messages and framed to obtain support from National Assembly members. Also counter tobacco industry arguments will be prepared and distributed.
- Consultation meeting between Law committee of National assembly and senior tobacco control workers in Thailand. This meeting is to provide Law committee opportunity to learn from Thailand on key articles of the law especially article on setting of fund for tobacco control.
- Media advocacy. Currently there is very few tobacco control news in Lao media due to lack of capacity and resources. ADRA Lao will hire professional media officer to run media advocacy activities. Workshops with media will be organized to provide media with right understanding on the need of tobacco control law. Tailored messages will be regularly provided to the media (TV, radio and newspaper). Policy makers will be engaged in the media activities to set the public agenda and mobilize commitment.
