“Laos, a world of towering mountain ranges and fertile river beds”. A country that is “the land of a million elephants and a colorful stage on which some of the most charming scenes of Southeast Asia unfold” where you “simply marvel at the untouched beauty of a sunset upon the Mekong”. These statements are taken from various marketing webpages that seek to show off the Laotian beauty for tourism purposes. Although I do love Laos, much for its emerald-green forests and its kin

Aay’s Village is hiring an Accountant & Fundraiser for our international team of volunteers! This is an excellent opportunity for you who want to contribute to our mission in Laos. You can be located anywhere in the world as long as you have a computer. You’ll be working weekly in a team of 6 international team members from all over Europe who volunteer for the local team consisting of 4 paid team members in Laos. We work on a basis of at least 5-10 hours weekly depending on

Our biggest realization so far in 2018 is that when our first graduates leave our program, we want to take a couple of weeks to improve our systems before inviting the next 120 children to our daily classes. Firstly, it has become apparent through valuable volunteer feedback that we should make some adjustments due to our recent growth. Sometimes we have 3-4 volunteer joining us at the same time, and this brings the possibility of splitting up the class into groups with diff

We are hiring! We are looking for a volunteer to join us as the Manager of Education! Aay's Village is a non-for-profit organization working in a small jungle village in Laos, South East Asia. Our mission is to provide children with the tools they need to create the future they deserve. We do this by offering evening studies to over 120 children aged 8-18 every day. Our team consists of young adults situated all over the world who volunteers every day towards our mission in L

What a year! 2017 started with Mari and me travelling to Laos in January to set up the new Learning Lab donated by the Kavli Trust. We spent two weeks setting it all up, and the results amazed us. The children really enjoyed the new learning apps and the village was thrilled with the modern set-up. During the first half of 2017, we continued to welcome amazing volunteers every month. Jens were one of these, and after his volunteer period, we invited him to join our organizati

Today we are celebrating 1 year in rural Laos educating children! <3 We received incredible feedback from so many people after our article in Bergens Tidende yesterday. The article was a profile interview with Åshild and she talked about our first year of educating children in Laos! Link to article here: https://www.bt.no/…/i/AeA…/-A-hjelpe-andre_-gir-livet-mening Today Kavlifondet has released an article on our cooperation with them. As you might now, Kavlifondet chose to su

Hi guys, This is Åshild, the manager of Aay’s Village. In the last couple of weeks, I have been feeling an extreme feeling of gratitude in my body. I think it is because it is under a month left until we can celebrate 1 year since the launch of our volunteer organization in Aay’s Village. They say that start-ups almost never make it to one year, and we are almost there. Well, I can say for sure that we will be around for more than a year. How? First of all, we are needed in L

Mari og Mathilde hadde gleden av å gjøre et flott intervju med Tønsberg Blad hvor vi fikk muligheten til å dele litt av bakgrunnen til prosjektet samt foklare litt hvordan vi arbeider. Bakgrunnen til prosjektet er nok ukjent for mange, men dette er en av hovedgrunnene til at prosjektet trengs i landsbyen da Aay tidligere bodde i et primitivt, - men etablert lokalsamfunn. "– Landsbyen hans er en samling av stammer som ble tvangsflyttet fra høylandet som er rikt på ressurse

It has been some time since our last post, and we do apologize. As a matter of fact, the organization has been growing rather quickly the last few months and we will have a lot of volunteers during the summer, but we still need more help so do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to know more or apply! :) Some of you might still be wondering what our project is all about and what we are trying to achieve, to summarize, you as a volunteer in Aay's Village you will be m

An incredible weekend in Laos When I think back on the weekend we had here in Laos, I notice that we did something fun every single second of the day. The weekend started with the introduction of our new family member, our dear Bruno! His name was first Nikki, but after a couple of beers and Bruno Mars' songs loud on the speaker on Friday evening, Aay named him Bruno. Both Mari and I highly supported the new name choice. So about Friday; We celebrated a huge thing for us: the

A big helloo from the Lao-jungle! :D To continue our little exciting story telling of our days in Laos winter 2017, here comes part II. Or the second week of our stay. That is up for interpretation.. Åshild has already told about our little weekend excursions, so I’ll get straight back to the reason why we are really here; the learning lab. We had already tried the apps on quite a few students and worked hard with Aay for him to integrate it into new lesson plans the first we

Hello from two extremely happy girls in a very lovely (and hot) Laos! At the moment, Åshild and I are sitting in the corner of our project house, listening to Sia’s Cheap Thrills, while energetically scribbling down our little adventure. We are overexcited to write to you, as we are situated in the heart of our organisation: Aay’s Village in Phonsawarthe. The reason why we are here and why we are extremely happy is quite a nice story. However, after writing it all, it is almo