The Ban Na Xang community gets behind GVI English classes
GVI started teaching at Wat Na Xang in the third quarter of
2011 in response to a request from an ambitious young novice wanting to set up
English lessons in his temple for his 8 fellow novices. GVI happily accepted the invitation and soon
after starting at Wat Na Xang found word had spread and kids from the village
began coming in droves.
Not too long after that GVI opted to split the classes to
better differentiate the levels, so now two classes were running over 2
hours. Not too long after that, and more
kids started coming, we were overflowing again and had little littlies needing
more attention again, so another split was made.
But, we had a problem.
Two classes in the same small room at the temple, with children as young
as 3 playing energetic English games?
Very noisy! But Novice Wonxay and
the village’s Nai Ban (head man) got together and decided to offer GVI the
community hall to teach classes. This
way, more and more kids can continue coming to the two early classes and the
Novices and older girls in the village can have lessons in relative quiet at
the temple. 
The villagers all gathered around the first few weeks every
day to watch the foreign volunteers teach their kids, recognising the value of
this free extra education in English their kids were receiving. We’ve received so much support from the
parents and adults of the community and feel very welcome in Ban Na Xang. When Novice Won Xay is busy with temple or
other duties, we often have enthusiastic English speaking parents come to our
aid, particularly helpful with the rambunctious little kids! 
Na Xang has certainly touched many of our past volunteers in
their experiences with the community.
It’s a special experience – challenging but highly rewarding.
GVI has shown our thanks by sponsoring new tables and
benches at the temple school, and a prior volunteer help set up a mini‘library’ for the kids to access too. It’s
a promising start for everyone and we look forward to helping this community
for a long time to come.
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