Monday, February 25, 2013

February 2013 Monthly Achievement Report


Construction Project at Wat Pasa Viet.

Building a well, making bricks, laying cement.

For 1 week in February, 2 brothers Joel and Dominic, our second construction project volunteers, worked alongside the Novices from Wat Pasa Viet on a range of jobs. The jobs were dirty and hard work and the boys were covered in mud and cement by the end of each day.

A special aspect of this project is the opportunity to work shoulder to shoulder with the Novices and see and experience firsthand what hard work is involved and how resourceful the Lao people are. In the west, very few people would contemplate making bricks rather than just purchasing them but in Laos at Wat Pasa Viet all the bricks used for various purposes are made by hand with one brick mould. Pride is taken in removing each brick from the mould and seeing no cracks. The Novices learn many trade related skills during their time in a temple which serve them well for their futures.

One of the jobs undertaken during the volunteers’ project time was working on the digging of a well. This project is now finished and means an extra water source for the temple, very necessary in the long dry season.

A considerable advantage to the temple in having volunteers involved in construction projects at the temples where we teach English is that the costs of small scale projects are covered by GVI. As all temples rely solely on donations from the community, GVI is supplying much needed funds that ordinarily would be delayed by the temples having to raise the money themselves.

 To find out more about our construction projects visit:



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