World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

More than 130,000 children and families in six provinces involved in the World Food Programme’s school feeding scheme have benefited from grant assistance provided by the Korean government and movie star Mr Jang Dong Gun. Deputy Minister of Education Lytou Bouapao yesterday welcomed Mr Jang to Laos at a ceremony attended by WFP Deputy Representative to Laos, Ms Elisabeth Faure.

The Republic of Korea government has provided 3.37 billion kip or US$ 400,000 to the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare to purchase rice for the poor the north and southern Laos. The package was presented by representative of the United Nations World Food Programme, Ms. Karin Manente, to Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Welfare of Laos, Mr. Laoly FaipengYoa, at the witness of the Republic of Korean Ambassador to Laos, Mr. Lee Gun-tae and relevant officials.

 Parents in rural Laos are still keeping their children out of school so they can work to support their families, according to a senior education official in the tiny Southeast Asian country—one of the world’s poorest.(..)The WFP works with the Lao Education Ministry to provide free snacks and lunches to rural schoolchildren, and girls are given rations of canned fish and rice to take home as an incentive for parents to send their daughters to school.

Three months after tropical storm Ketsana struck southern Laos, leaving 28 dead and an estimated US$90 million worth of damage to property and infrastructure, tens of thousands of survivors find themselves with little or nothing to eat.(..) To cope, Bounted's family, like others in the district, are living off cassava, a staple of the Lao diet, mixed with rice donated by the World Food Programme (WFP).

In Laos, the storm killed at least 24 people. The floods meant that until two days ago, the worst-hit Attapeu region could only be reached by helicopter and boat. The United Nations World Food Programme says canned fish and rice have now been delivered to storm survivors. MAKIN: The World Food Programme has an office in Attapeu which is on the border with Vietnam and Cambodia down in the south, right in the south of Laos.

Attapeu had been inaccessible but on Saturday the water subsided enough to allow government helicopters to begin delivery of rice and canned fish from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) stockpile, said Cornelia Paetz, a spokeswoman for the agency. “It’s very significant because Attapeu is the worst-hit province,” Paetz said, adding that two districts of Attapeu were now accessible by road.

"We are extremely concerned about people getting back on their feet following such devastating destruction," WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said from Washington. "In some places, there is water as far as the eye can see, and people are literally swimming to safety."

Over 100,000 people in the southeast Asian country of Laos are being given emergency food aid after a plague of rats wiped out much of the country's rice harvest. The World Food Programme is delivering 5,000 tons of food supplies to seven provinces in the north of the country.

The Lao People’s Democratic Republic is classified as a Least Developed Country (LDC) and Low Income Food Deficit Country (LIFDC). The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has been successfully running a school feeding program since 2002, in close cooperation with the Lao Ministry of Education. (..) We talk about education and school feeding in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) with Ms Karin Manente, WFP country director in Vientiane.

"After this, I quit!" says my colleague Lin, and he is only half joking. He takes the Buddha image that hangs around his neck and raises it to the sky in silent prayer. (..) After an hour or so we reach the MAG team. They have just finished clearing the path we have walked on. It is to be widened into a road big enough for vehicles, to be built by MAG's development partner the World Food Programme.