Wanted: Volunteer Group

WANTED: Volunteer Groups
to assist for 10 days on the
Na Koke Village Hydro Project!

by Nick Ascot - Director, North by North East



The rugged beauty of an area in such need of simple yet effective technology!

We are looking for a school group who would like to spend 1-2 weeks helping us to help local villagers complete a project which will bring water to their village (so they do not have to make countless trips with buckets). Please let us know at (info@north-by-north-east.com) if your group is interested.

PROJECT HISTORY & GOALS

While we support in various ways a number of on-going assistance and philanthropic projects in Laos and Thailand, this project deserves special mention, because it is unique. We are pleased to report that the Ban Na Koke Hydro Project, financed by philanthropic donors and realized by local villagers and North by North East staff volunteers has successfully completed Stage I of III.

North by North East has worked with the people of Na Kok village in the remote Central Laos Limestone region to guide our guests through local limestone caves and jungles there for about 5 years now. These shy and charming people have always contributed greatly to the overall well being and enjoyment of our guests who have spent time in the area. So we were very pleased to participate when village elders asked to meet and discuss general needs of the village, with special emphasis on the local school. Mr. Jason Rolan (our Laos country-GM who also spearheads our philanthropic and voluntourism initiatives) and Mr. Montri Pohom (our jungle scout) not only evaluated and determined needs of the village, but ingeniously designed sustainable processes and methods to insure maximum benefit of the project over time.

Na Kok Villagers need the water for their future

Supplying water is not an unusual goal, but doing so without pumps and generators brought from afar is not so usual.

The project’s long-term goal is to eventually provide a supply of clean water which can be boiled for drinking, or can be used for bathing, to the entire village of 45 houses. At the moment we have budget only to realize the very substantial short term goals: the villagers wanted to provide a pumping and filtration system for clean water for showers and toilets at the village school. Water must be brought UPHILL from the river to the village, and realizing this without the employment of electrical pumps represented the most formidable challenge of the project. Other more ‘normal’ challenges remained also: How would the villagers transport the construction material to this remote village? Who would do that actual work of building the paddlewheel and the big the water-filters and storage cisterns at the school?

Several trips to the village and meetings there with headmen, elders, teachers, and other local leaders allowed us to reach a consensus on the materials needed (and associated costs thereof), and also to survey the local people for skills we knew would be needed in the project.



Village-based n eeds assessment followed by careful surveying



Using readily available local resources to create a simple yet effective solution!

The 8000 USD budget was raised by former North by North East guests who had meaningful experiences in Ban Na Kok. An elderly German couple who comes to Laos every year for a month supplied about 3000 USD, and a family from the UK raised another 2000 USD. The final donor came from a Canadian philanthropist who supplied the remaining 3000 USD. While it must be administered judiciously, we expect to complete the following with within this budget: