"Mr Project" from Laos

Dear Friends,
I am (you gave me the name) "Mr. Project", he he, until now it's true that Jo Hann reminded us during the course that I (from CIDSE) look like or act like a shopper to travel to rural communities and select definite criteria to set up the activities and yet we still can't get the communities based on those criteria!!! It's quite a different situation in Laos if compare to your country contexts. We can't work independently. Every time NGO's work at any levels, we should cooperate with the government, and every time when we say something, we should b careful...!!

It's true that we try to analyse the root cause of the issues as the central and NGO network and for example to provide information on land issues (concession). We recognised that the root cause is not only the transnational corporations investing to plan industrial trees in large scale but also the weak (corruption) government officials or the policy makers. We try to persuade local villagers to recognise their basic rights on communal or private properties particularly the land tenure right.

I still travel to rural communities to discuss and interview the village chiefs or local authorities in different districts and provinces to start the projects (Rural Community Land Project and Law Dissemination Project) as I had presented during the CO course in Bali. We hope to get Memorandum of Understanding MOU with them in April!