Phou Kout people support Govt. development policy

Vientiane Times; June 7, 2005

Xieng Khuang authorities on June 3 welcomed 171 people who voluntarily joined the focal development point in Ban Chomthua, Phoukout district. This is a programme sponsored by the government that aims to alleviate poverty.

Xieng Khuang Radio reported that as a gesture of appreciation for their support to the government's policy of alleviating poverty, a welcoming team, made up of officials from the provincial Labour and Social Welfare, Health, Lao Women's Union and others, was dispatched to Phoukout to see what they could do to help them settle in.

It also reported that the provincial authority has provided the new settlers with polished rice adequate for a month's consumption. In addition, they have been given other necessary household items such as mosquito nets.

Speaking to Xieng Khuang Radio, the provincial governor said that to help the people get resettled as quickly as possible, while waiting for their first rice harvest, the provincial authority has helped them with enough rice and foodstuffs. Each family has also received some thirty corrugated iron roofing sheets.

Of the new comers who have given up unsustainable swidden cultivation, nine families are from Lao Theung ethnic group, and 81 are women. The governor has appealed to others to join this poverty reduction effort by settling in focal development points instead of living dispersedly. This way allows the government to better use scarce resources for building infrastructure facilities, and providing services in different fields, including health and education.