How many of us parents have heard something like this from our child: “I really need a new pair of sneakers. These are all scuffed up and dirty and I had it only for a couple of months. And Mom, I could use a pair of pink ones to go with my gym outfit.” Not too long ago I got this question from my daughter and it made me cringe. Our abundance has made us the most wasteful people in the world. My child is merely mirroring the world she is living in. As a nurturing and loving parent, I looked around for an answer to the age old question: “How can I find the most concrete way to show my child that one pair of sneakers is fabulous for at least this school year until those feet grow out?” I discovered my answer during the CNN documentary Heroes—not the paranormal heroes in the TV show with the same name but actual, living heroes who make a difference in the lives of people. The heroes portrayed in this documentary made me think of Dori Shimoda because he is a hero to me, one who applies one of my favorite quotes from Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Merriam Webster Dictionary defines a hero as: 1) a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities; 2) one that shows great courage. To his wife, Barbara Lee Shimoda, Dori is simply “an angel on earth.”

I met Dori in April 2007 and was intrigued by how he discovered Laos and our people and what made him decide to do something to help children in Laos. So I asked him for an interview. I wanted to know how he started his nonprofit Give Children A Choice to build preschools in Luang Prabang, Laos—of all places. How did a Nisei discover Laos and decide to help a people in a place he had never met? How does a man with one pair of hiking boots decide to help the shoeless children of Laos? How can I, as a parent, bring this awareness of caring and selflessness to my own child?

In 2002, Dori Shimoda founded Give Children A Choice, a 501(c)3 organization, with the mission to build preschools in Asia to raise the educational achievement for elementary school girls and preschool children during the critical formative years of learning. Here is my interview with Dori:

Dara: Why Laos?

Dori: I went backpacking in 1999. I was an empty nester without plans. I needed time and space to think so why not travel? I just took a boat across the Mekong from Thailand to Laos. Then I stepped off a cargo boat after traveling two days down the Mekong River and I found before me the town of Luang Prabang, the old royal capital of Laos, a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is home of over 30 incredibly ornate Buddhist temples. People are unimposing and welcoming. Say “Sabaidee” (Hello) to anyone of any age and you will receive a friendly smile and a “Sabaidee” in return. I call Luang Prabang Shangri-la. The Shanghai Daily called it Paradise.

Dara: What did you think of the country and of the Lao people at first glance?

Dori: I love the peacefulness, the community, the local people. Yet, traveling minutes outside of this town of 30,000 people, I was distressed to be in the midst of poverty.[pause]I found myself in this beautiful setting with this good feeling, and I felt it was wrong, so wrong because outside of town, there were children… preschoolers not doing anything! I know that in the United States, children have the opportunity to begin learning as soon as they are born. I know that we have well documented studies that children who are mentally stimulated, supported, nurtured from birth do well in life and in school.

I thought it might have been just this one village, until I walked on to the next village, and to the next and the next and the next…. and I realized that it was endemic.

It was a devastating moment. That moment when I realized that this is an endemic situation: where kids care for kids and the listlessness, the quiet and the subdued children by the hundreds I saw. There are bare[footed] children carrying and caring for their younger siblings.

(Photo by Dori Shimoda)
Child and toddler of Aine Savanh village, May 2002.

Dara: When you returned to the United States, what did you do?

Dori: When I returned home, I sent out 800-1000 letters of inquiry soliciting input on how to help the children. Sadly enough, only a few responded, including 3 academics. I researched and found out that education in Laos begins at 6 years of age and according to certain academicians, we know that the formative years end at 6 years of age. Right there and then, I wanted to do something for the children of Laos. And here I was, in the midst of beauty and wonderful people, yet I did not know anything about the country, its history, its economics, nothing except that I wanted to help the children. I had found my purpose.

According to the UN’s 2006 Human Development Index of 177 countries, Laos is ranked 133 of 177 countries. In stark contrast with its natural beauty, cultural traditions and unspoiled provenance, Laos is economically very poor and challenged with many standard of living issues we take for granted here in the States. The 2006 Report by the UNICEF- “The State of the World’s Children 2006 - Excluded and Invisible,” highlighted:

• 26% of the population of Laos makes less than $1 a day, families in the villages where we work make as little as $0.15 a day
• 6.5% of children don’t live beyond one year
• 8.5% of children don’t live beyond five years
• 38% of children do not attend primary school, 50% do not attend secondary school
• 40% of children under 5 are moderately to severely underweight
• Less than 50% of children receive childhood immunizations
• 31% of the population is uneducated
• 86% of the rural population lack adequate sanitation facilities

Dara: When you first did your research and came upon the statistics, was what you saw and observed representative of these numbers?

Dori: These numbers, they are statistics, as such do not show what I saw in the villages…children of elementary age carrying younger siblings in dirty stringy clothes. What amazed me the most was the fact that they ran up to me moving a finger on the palm of their hand, like they were writing; they were asking for a pen. All they were asking for was a pen.

These numbers do not show the leaking roofs where in one village I said: “I see the sunlight through the roof. Why don’t you just fix it?” I embarrassed them. They did not have the $100 to fix the roof. This picture of the school in Pa Khan village does not show all the roofing and other repairs needed. Give Children A Choice was able to build a new school.

(Photo by Debbie Davis)
Pa Kan village.

These numbers do not show the lack of basic hygiene needs. When asked where do the children go to the bathroom? A vague gesture points to the outskirt of the village.

Dara: Did you address the sanitation issue?

Dori: Give Children A Choice also builds bathrooms for the preschoolers with septic tanks where possible that have longevity of 8 years before requiring maintenance. The villagers learn how to take care of this. Barbara has also begun to include health fairs during our trips because the need to understand basic hygiene is so great.

Dara: What did you do once the response to your request for information to begin helping the children fell short of your expectation?

Dori: I returned to Laos to my first That Luang festival in 2000 to investigate how to get things done. And this was what was presented to me by multiple persons knowledgeable about the process to begin a non-profit in Laos in 2000:

• Live in Vientiane for 18-24 months
• Schedule a series of meetings with different ministries (expect multiple cancellations and rescheduling)
• Expect overhead for NGO [nongovernmental organization] for the government worker (where the NGO pays for a government worker assigned to them and a representative for the NGO, because the government worker has to accompany them on every single trip)
• Make sure you get a Land Cruiser because a nice ride makes for nice companion.

Dara: What did you do once you discovered all these criteria?

Dori: As a nonbureaucratic person, I found these expectations very difficult. The money I wanted to spend would just end up in individual pockets or nonproductive overhead versus the greater good for all. I knew that 100% of donations had to go to the cause, otherwise, it defeats the purpose.

Dori did an unthinkable act; he skirted the bureaucracy and went directly to the local naiban (village leader) who, in less than 5 months, received approval for building a school. The money had been raised and the builder had been found. Construction began quickly.

For each school Give Children A Choice builds, a contract is signed where 10% of the construction costs come directly from the villagers in the form of labor, money or any type of support and 90% comes from donors.

Dara: How did you find a builder you can trust?

Dori: I trusted this man because what he presented met our goals. We also had several fail safe agreements in the contract before we would pay for the building.

Dara: How was the first experience from beginning to end?

Dori: One unexpected part of the first school project was that the villagers and builder got all the permits before building began, got the inspections done as scheduled and required and got everything approved for the children to use the building from beginning to completion. Construction took approximately 90 days from start to finish. Total time for project from beginning to end [was] 8 months.

For each school built, the government of Laos provides the teachers who are now being trained by Save the Children Norway. Give Children A Choice requests that the teachers come from the local village. The nonprofit currently offers to pay for two years of salary for preschool teachers after which time they must be certified and placed on the government payroll. Give Children A Choice also researches for ways for the villagers to sustain themselves and maintain the buildings, thereby continuing to nurture and support the younger generations.

Dori: We at Give Children A Choice worked hard to develop and operate under a set of very important principles that makes us the most efficient and effective nonprofit on the planet. Our philosophy is to do what we do best; to encourage and support the villagers to do what they do best; and to let the government do what it has set out to do, in this case, to support its people by its effectiveness in providing permits, inspections and approvals.

Now, with the assistance of our contributors, government officials, partner organizations, and the villages where each project is located, our work merely begins once each structure itself has been built. After completing the preschool, we take a series of crucial “next steps” to ensure the success of each project we develop. First, we work with village officials and the parents to emphasize the need for all children to have an education.

With each new school, we have an opening ceremony and here I am shaking hands with Mr.Eung Lorsavanh, the Head of Luang Prabang Provincial Education Department and Thongchanh Vilayvong, our Give Children A Choice Coordinator in Laos.

(Photo by Barbara Shimoda)

As noted from its website, Give Children A Choice also give other support like:

• In some villages children cannot afford to bring lunch to preschool. We provide a free lunch program, which costs only $10 per month for 30 children.
• In some villages, there are many sick children due to poor hygiene, health or their environment. We are now incorporating health fairs as a part of the preschool opening, we provide health and hygiene education, free medical checkups and childhood inoculations.

Barbara Shimoda convinced the Luang Prabang provincial and district health departments to cooperate and collaborate with Give Children A Choice with the health fairs. At the same time, Barbara encouraged pediatricians from St. Barnabas Hospital in New York City to volunteer with the Lao medical teams to provide medical check ups.

(Photo by Barbara Shimoda)
Long Or Village Health Fair, February 2007.

(Photo by Barbara Shimoda)
Long Or Village Health Fair, February 2007.

• In some villages, parents can not afford tuition (required for primary school and above). Our preschools are tuition-free.
• In some villages, the village cannot afford paper to draw on. We provide paper for the school year, costing a mere $20 per year for 30 children.
• In some villages, parents are embarrassed to send their children to preschool without a “nap” mat. We provide free mats for children. It costs $2.50 per mat, which last three to five years.

Dori: Money is one of the few ways we are receiving help. We have volunteers who, not only donate their money but also their time with us to build, to brainstorm, to research, to promote education, health and hygiene in each village.

Our volunteers also travel with extra luggage to bring much needed supplies to the villages.

We are fortunate for technology because people can go on our website and see for themselves what each village preschool needs. One parent stated that her child saw they needed crayons and was trying to figure out ways to send them over. What we prefer is to collect the money, do our purchases in Thailand before we go over to Laos. Several of the airlines have been generous in donating cargo space from Bangkok to Vientiane.

This February 2008, Give Children A Choice is returning to Laos to open more schools and host several health fairs. Many volunteers, including for the first time several children, will be accompanying Barbara, Dori and Debbie Davis on this trip.

Dori: A village leader at Aine Savanh village stated, “After the preschool opened, the children are doing something they have never done before. They are walking together to school, they sing, they dance. They are more animated and they talk about what they are learning.”

The village leaders claim they have nothing to offer us in return. In truth, they give us priceless gifts of overwhelming blessings, gratitude, compassion, satisfaction and serenity.

Give Children A Choice is run by the dedicated and selfless volunteers Debbie Davis and Barbara Shimoda. Both spend endless nights after their normal day jobs working on Give Children A Choice and endless days promoting Give Children A Choice.  Both Barbara and Dori are thankful for Debbie who ensures Give Children A Choice runs smoothly.

To view completed projects by GCAC, please click on www.givechildrenachoice.org
To continue reading about Give Children A Choice and their achievements.

(Photo by Thongchanh Vilayvong)
NaNan village, February 2007. Grand opening of preschool in conjunction with a health fair are scheduled for February 2008.

Give Children A Choice
Helping children’s education and future in Luang Prabang

ຊ່ວຍເຫຼືອການສຶກສາ ແລະ ອະນາຄົດ ຂອງເດັກນ້ອຍໃນຫຼວງພະບາງ

*Photos by permission of Give Children A Choice