The Vientiane Children's Cultural Centre held activities for children in Xanakham district of Vientiane province from March 28-29 to promote children's rights, health care and gender equality.

The travelling activities programme was made possible by the Ministry of Information and Culture, with financial assistance from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

These activities were covered by short-wave and long-wave radio as part of a UNICEF project to train young reporters from the centre. Transmission was available in 10 of the country's 17 provinces.

Children's Cultural Centre Deputy Director, Mr Bounphak Leungvilay, said this was the first time this year the centre had conducted travelling activities for local children. Other travelling campaigns had been held in previous years.

“For this programme we cooperated with provincial children's cultural centres, the Medical News Centre at the Ministry of Health and Lao National Radio,” Mr Bounphak said.

“Volunteers from our centre organised activities for children, such as singing, dancing, leadership promotion, painting, simple toy making, drama and games. All these reflect our goals of promoting children's rights, health care and gender equality.”

“During the two-day programme we also showed children the benefits of hobbies like making things from discarded materials and helping their parents make handicrafts,” he said.

Officials from the Medical News Centre offered health tips to children and their parents as part of each activity.

“We think the programme has been a success. I can see the children involved in the event are all eager to learn and receive the messages we are trying to communicate. They enjoyed the games and activities,” Mr Bounphak said.

The centre plans to launch similar programmes in the southern provinces immediately following Pi Mai Lao. It aims to hold activities in every province where a centre is located by the end of this year.

The centre, established in 1990, offers a wide range of extra-curricular cultural activities for children. There are 21 centres in 13 provinces, managed by local authorities. The Vientiane Children's Cultural Centre offers guidance and support on technical matters.
T he centre's objective is to provide cultural activities for children in their free time and on weekends and holidays, provide library services and encourage reading amongst children, to serve as a meeting place for training courses and workshops on children's development, and to publish picture books for children.

By Phoonsab Thevongsa
April 7, 2009
Vientiane Times

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