- Jan. 8, 2014: Laksaopat Village, Xieng Khuang Province
- Feb. 12, 2014: Huaikhorng Village, Xieng Khuang Province
Showing posts with label Big Brother Mouse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Big Brother Mouse. Show all posts
More books for kids in Laos
TAMMACHAT sponsors reading program in rural Lao school
TAMMACHAT sponsors another book party and daily reading program at a rural school in Laos!
From Big Brother Mouse: Nov. 13, 2013 -- Today, every student in Duantai Village will be enjoying a book during their school's new reading time. Until now, most of these children had probably never even seen a book except perhaps a textbook, and had never read a book for enjoyment. Some didn't even know such things existed.
Bringing more books to children in Laos
TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles supports another book party and new
silent reading program in a rural school in Laos through Big Brother Mouse, an innovative Lao publishing company.
Textiles & Books: What's the Connection?
In 2007, when we first visited Luang Prabang, a UNESCO world heritage town in northern Laos, we discovered Big Brother Mouse. We write often about this exciting social enterprise, a Lao-owned and -run book publishing venture that makes reading and literacy fun for kids.
We sell textiles, handwoven by women in rural Laos and Thailand. We do this to help women support their families, communities and traditions. And to share their beautiful, naturally dyed textiles with women (and men) in North America. We follow fair trade principles, as set out by the World Fair Trade Organization. Part of our work is to support community development.
Supporting Literacy in Laos - 2013 Update
Another 3 book parties
sponsored by TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles (thanks to our customers) were held on Feb. 7, March 14 and April 9, 2013 in 3 villages in rural Laos. At the end
of each party, held at the village schools, all the kids get to choose a free book
of their own in the Lao language,
nearly always the first book they've ever owned. Then the book party
team leaves more books with the school, so the students can trade their book for a
different one after they've read it.
Supporting children's literacy in Laos
Another book party sponsored by TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles (thanks to our customers) was held on Jan. 7, 2013 in Ban Naborn, a village in rural Laos. At the end of the party, held at the village school, all the kids got a free book of their own in the Lao language,
nearly always the first book they've ever owned. Then the book party
team left more books with the school, so they can trade their book for a
different one after they've read it. Big Brother Mouse left a total of
221 books.
Here are a few pictures from that day. On the Big Brother Mouse website, there's a fuller description of what happens at each of these events.
From Big Brother Mouse:
"It was an exciting day for all of the children, and we expect many of them will always remember it -- both because they had fun, and for the magic of opening a fun book for the first time, and discovering the new world that opens up. Thank you for making this possible!"
Big Brother Mouse held book parties in more than 900 rural schools in 2012 – up from 544 in 2011. In 2012 alone, more than 270,000 books were donated to children in Laos! If you'd like a PDF copy of the 2012 Annual Report from Big Brother Mouse, truly an inspiration on literacy development, we'd be happy to send you one. Email us with your request.
Sponsor your own book party (or the publication of a new book) and make a difference in the life and future of a child in Laos.
Here are a few pictures from that day. On the Big Brother Mouse website, there's a fuller description of what happens at each of these events.
From Big Brother Mouse:
"It was an exciting day for all of the children, and we expect many of them will always remember it -- both because they had fun, and for the magic of opening a fun book for the first time, and discovering the new world that opens up. Thank you for making this possible!"
Big Brother Mouse held book parties in more than 900 rural schools in 2012 – up from 544 in 2011. In 2012 alone, more than 270,000 books were donated to children in Laos! If you'd like a PDF copy of the 2012 Annual Report from Big Brother Mouse, truly an inspiration on literacy development, we'd be happy to send you one. Email us with your request.
Sponsor your own book party (or the publication of a new book) and make a difference in the life and future of a child in Laos.
Our partner Big Brother Mouse now on Facebook
Big Brother Mouse -- the pioneering social enterprise in Laos that TAMMACHAT supports and partners with to sponsor book parties for kids in rural villages in Laos -- is now on Facebook.
Follow them at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Big-Brother-Mouse/351232051631809.
Follow them at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Big-Brother-Mouse/351232051631809.
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| "Discovery Day" at an orphanage in Luang Prabang, Laos. |
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| Kids at a "book party" at their school with their very first books. |
Supporting literacy in Laos: more village "book parties"
You've seen it on our home page: "For every piece you buy, we give a child in Laos their very first book, published by Big Brother Mouse."
Big Brother Mouse, a pioneering Lao-owned book publishing social enterprise, developed book parties to distribute books to kids in schools in rural Laos. Often lessons are only offered to these children on blackboards or with a
few textbooks, so the opportunity to enter a world of books is new to
most kids in Laos. Young staff visit each school with a box of books -- one for each child to choose -- along with their enthusiasm to excite the children about reading and to open the doors to new worlds and new ideas.
You can sponsor a book party of your own. Next time you have a birthday or other celebration, consider this -- give the gift of reading.
The latest book parties from our 2011 donation -- thanks to our customers' support -- are captured in these photos. Thank you!
For more links to our stories about Big Brother Mouse, including our amazing bicycle trip to Northeast Laos, visit our website.
You can sponsor a book party of your own. Next time you have a birthday or other celebration, consider this -- give the gift of reading.
The latest book parties from our 2011 donation -- thanks to our customers' support -- are captured in these photos. Thank you!
Ban Pansom, Feb. 22, 2012: 216 books donated
Ban Kasuakua, May 4, 2012: 212 books donated
For more links to our stories about Big Brother Mouse, including our amazing bicycle trip to Northeast Laos, visit our website.
Fast Food and Slow Fashion
Article by TAMMACHAT co-founder Alleson Kase
First published in The Highland Heart Weekly, June 1, 2012
In the 20th century, corporations devised new ways to part consumers from their money. The fast food industry was designed to serve the most customers in the shortest time at the lowest cost. Fast foods have everything to do with impulse and almost nothing to do with satisfaction. This guarantees that customers keep coming back and those golden arches keep going up. .
Fast fashion is a lot like fast food. It delivers up-to-the minute styles at low prices. Consumers chase trends and, in the long run, spend more for less quality. The world’s resources get chewed up and spat out. And, of course, those fast fashions are made in sweatshops where workers’ health and safety are even worse than their pay.
Clearly, this is a race to the bottom so what’s a consumer to do?
Slow fashion, like the slow food movement, is offering consumers a better choice. Slow fashion means buy less, buy green, buy fair and buy quality. People buy less but get more. Skilled artisans use quality fibres to create authentic clothes that are healthier, more satisfying and longer lasting. The earth’s bounty is preserved and nurtured rather than poisoned and exploited.
TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles is a one of the foremothers of slow fashion, as Just Us! was a pioneer of fair trade coffee. TAMMACHAT, which means “natural” in Thai, is a social enterprise based on Nova Scotia’s South Shore. It is the work of Ellen Agger and Alleson Kase, women who are more interested in people and the planet than profit. They believe that fairly traded textiles can help sustain communities and traditions, while respecting and promoting women’s empowerment, economic justice and a healthy environment.
TAMMACHAT’s naturally dyed silks and cottons combine contemporary styling with traditional skills to create timeless fashion accessories and home décor. Best of all, their textiles are hand-made, fairly traded and environmentally sustainable. Fair trade means buying at a fair price directly from artisan groups that promote skill training and community development. It also means advance payment on orders and long-term commitment to democratic organizations that provide more than an income to their members.
Ellen and Alleson spend several months each year in Thailand and Laos, partnering with rural women’s weaving groups who share with them their indigenous knowledge and techniques. These visits provide them the opportunity to design products for the Canadian market, as well as to better understand the artisans themselves. Most of these women practice these traditional crafts to supplement their income as rice farmers.
Each year Ellen and Alleson also deliver a donation to Big Brother Mouse, a unique publishing venture that creates books by and for Lao students and young adults. For each textile they sell, TAMMACHAT gives a Lao child their first book.
For the stories behind these extraordinary textiles, visit www.tammachat.com or find them on Facebook www.facebook.com/tammachat or Twitter www.twitter.com/tammachat.
TAMMACHAT’s textiles will be available in Antigonish on Saturday, June 16, 2012 from 10am to 5pm at St. James United Church Hall, 197 Main St., Antigonish.
For more great stories like this visit www.thehighlandheart.ca/latest.
First published in The Highland Heart Weekly, June 1, 2012
In the 20th century, corporations devised new ways to part consumers from their money. The fast food industry was designed to serve the most customers in the shortest time at the lowest cost. Fast foods have everything to do with impulse and almost nothing to do with satisfaction. This guarantees that customers keep coming back and those golden arches keep going up. .
Fast fashion is a lot like fast food. It delivers up-to-the minute styles at low prices. Consumers chase trends and, in the long run, spend more for less quality. The world’s resources get chewed up and spat out. And, of course, those fast fashions are made in sweatshops where workers’ health and safety are even worse than their pay.
Clearly, this is a race to the bottom so what’s a consumer to do?
Slow fashion, like the slow food movement, is offering consumers a better choice. Slow fashion means buy less, buy green, buy fair and buy quality. People buy less but get more. Skilled artisans use quality fibres to create authentic clothes that are healthier, more satisfying and longer lasting. The earth’s bounty is preserved and nurtured rather than poisoned and exploited.
TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles is a one of the foremothers of slow fashion, as Just Us! was a pioneer of fair trade coffee. TAMMACHAT, which means “natural” in Thai, is a social enterprise based on Nova Scotia’s South Shore. It is the work of Ellen Agger and Alleson Kase, women who are more interested in people and the planet than profit. They believe that fairly traded textiles can help sustain communities and traditions, while respecting and promoting women’s empowerment, economic justice and a healthy environment.
TAMMACHAT’s naturally dyed silks and cottons combine contemporary styling with traditional skills to create timeless fashion accessories and home décor. Best of all, their textiles are hand-made, fairly traded and environmentally sustainable. Fair trade means buying at a fair price directly from artisan groups that promote skill training and community development. It also means advance payment on orders and long-term commitment to democratic organizations that provide more than an income to their members.
Ellen and Alleson spend several months each year in Thailand and Laos, partnering with rural women’s weaving groups who share with them their indigenous knowledge and techniques. These visits provide them the opportunity to design products for the Canadian market, as well as to better understand the artisans themselves. Most of these women practice these traditional crafts to supplement their income as rice farmers.
Each year Ellen and Alleson also deliver a donation to Big Brother Mouse, a unique publishing venture that creates books by and for Lao students and young adults. For each textile they sell, TAMMACHAT gives a Lao child their first book.
For the stories behind these extraordinary textiles, visit www.tammachat.com or find them on Facebook www.facebook.com/tammachat or Twitter www.twitter.com/tammachat.
TAMMACHAT’s textiles will be available in Antigonish on Saturday, June 16, 2012 from 10am to 5pm at St. James United Church Hall, 197 Main St., Antigonish.
For more great stories like this visit www.thehighlandheart.ca/latest.
DISCOVERY DAY: Big Brother Mouse goes to the orphanage school in Luang Prabang
We arrive in a large truck. Yai and I are in the cab with the driver:
standing in the back, hanging onto the pipe frame, are 6 young Lao
women in pa siin, looking fresh faced and country healthy. They stand amidst
boxes and bins -- the educational displays and games we are bringing to
create Discovery Day, a first time initiative of Big Brother Mouse, an innovative book publishing social enterprise in Laos.
The young men follow on their small motorcycles, some alone, some 2 up, few with helmets.
20 minutes later we turn off the main road into an area green with bamboo and trees. We soon cross a stream and enter the gates of the Luang Prabang Residential School for Orphans in northern Laos.
While the name chills my heart, the space is sunny and bright. Long low, white buildings frame large playing fields and grassy patios with benches and shrubs. Behind the buildings on our left, beautiful plantings of vegetables slope down to the creek.
No one comes out to greet us.
Sasha directs Big Brother Mouse staff (aka "the Mice") to bring all the supplies into an empty classroom. Tables are brought outside. Desks and benches are arranged. Boxes are unpacked.
It shapes up slowly yet by the time the children come to see what is happening, the Mice have created a dozen or more "discovery stations" through which the children move like water in a creek. Here and there BBM staff provide explanations but it seems that little are required.
In less than an hour, the milling and noise level have dropped to a slow buzz. Most of the children have settled into an activity:
There's always an audience for the explanations and magnifying glasses that accompany the mineral and fossils collections.
Inside the 2 transformed classrooms there are 10 kids seated around most of the "play stations." Log cabins are being constructed at one, while colorful plastic tinker toys inspire loftier constructions. And while the plastic lace snap-togethers are new to me they are every bit as compelling for the youngsters constructing whimsical rotundas.
There are puzzle books and colored pencils, modeling clay and number games.
And everywhere there is a hum of curiosity and absorption.
No voices have been raised; nothing has crashed to the floor; nobody has run about excitedly; no squirmishes have ensued.
I can't imagine 200 Canadian children in behaving like this.
I welcome news from inspired teachers telling me I am just inexperienced.
The young men follow on their small motorcycles, some alone, some 2 up, few with helmets.
20 minutes later we turn off the main road into an area green with bamboo and trees. We soon cross a stream and enter the gates of the Luang Prabang Residential School for Orphans in northern Laos.
While the name chills my heart, the space is sunny and bright. Long low, white buildings frame large playing fields and grassy patios with benches and shrubs. Behind the buildings on our left, beautiful plantings of vegetables slope down to the creek.
No one comes out to greet us.
Sasha directs Big Brother Mouse staff (aka "the Mice") to bring all the supplies into an empty classroom. Tables are brought outside. Desks and benches are arranged. Boxes are unpacked.
It shapes up slowly yet by the time the children come to see what is happening, the Mice have created a dozen or more "discovery stations" through which the children move like water in a creek. Here and there BBM staff provide explanations but it seems that little are required.
In less than an hour, the milling and noise level have dropped to a slow buzz. Most of the children have settled into an activity:
- an explanation of human organs illustrated by a plastic model that can be dis- and re-assembled
- a series of electric connections that snap together to light a bulb
- carefully rendered cardboard models of the pyramids -- both Egyptian and Mayan -- along with the Great Wall of China and the Roman Coliseum, accompanied by a globe with which to locate them
- a table full of visual experiences: a classic kaleidoscope, a 3D Viewmaster, as well as those special glasses to view a 3D elephant poster, and a handful of other optical illusions
There's always an audience for the explanations and magnifying glasses that accompany the mineral and fossils collections.
Inside the 2 transformed classrooms there are 10 kids seated around most of the "play stations." Log cabins are being constructed at one, while colorful plastic tinker toys inspire loftier constructions. And while the plastic lace snap-togethers are new to me they are every bit as compelling for the youngsters constructing whimsical rotundas.
There are puzzle books and colored pencils, modeling clay and number games.
And everywhere there is a hum of curiosity and absorption.
No voices have been raised; nothing has crashed to the floor; nobody has run about excitedly; no squirmishes have ensued.
I can't imagine 200 Canadian children in behaving like this.
I welcome news from inspired teachers telling me I am just inexperienced.
Text: Alleson Kase
Photos: Darunee Suppawan ("Yai")
More about Big Brother Mouse:
- Big Brother Mouse website
- TAMMACHAT website
- More books for Lao children - our blog post of Jan. 29, 2012
- TAMMACHAT customers buy books for Lao kids - our blog post of Jan. 4, 2012
- Photo Essay: Big Brother Mouse Brings Fun & Educational Books to Kids in Laos - our 2011 time with Big Brother Mouse in Laos
More books for Lao children
Our third "book party" was held in Ban Namkhor, Laos on Jan. 4, 2012. Thanks to the enthusiastic young staff at Big Brother Mouse, who make these school-based events possible, TAMMACHAT donated 260 books to children at the local school.
For each textile piece we sell, we donate a new book to a child in Laos in partnership with Big Brother Mouse, a Lao-owned project that promotes literacy in the Lao language. This now makes 750 books that we've donated in late 2011 and 2012 to help children in rural Laos learn that reading is fun and rewarding; we have 2 more book parties in the works, thanks to our customers' support.
You can sponsor a book party yourself or the publication of a new book. It's a great way to honour someone, celebrate your birthday or just because.
I love the photos of the kids with their very first books -- fun ones too that help them experience the joy of reading!
For more photos of Big Brother Mouse book parties, see our posts from:
For each textile piece we sell, we donate a new book to a child in Laos in partnership with Big Brother Mouse, a Lao-owned project that promotes literacy in the Lao language. This now makes 750 books that we've donated in late 2011 and 2012 to help children in rural Laos learn that reading is fun and rewarding; we have 2 more book parties in the works, thanks to our customers' support.
You can sponsor a book party yourself or the publication of a new book. It's a great way to honour someone, celebrate your birthday or just because.
I love the photos of the kids with their very first books -- fun ones too that help them experience the joy of reading!
For more photos of Big Brother Mouse book parties, see our posts from:
- Jan. 4, 2012 (book parties held Oct. 26 and Dec. 6, 2011)
- March 15, 2011 (our photo essay of our 2011 time with Big Brother Mouse in Laos)
TAMMACHAT customers buy books for Lao kids
For every textile piece we sell, we donate a brand new book to a child in Laos. But these aren't just any books. They're published by a vibrant and growing book publishing project called Big Brother Mouse, based in Luang Prabang, Laos. Entirely Lao owned, this project began when a visiting American retired book publisher noticed the lack of books in Laos. He sought out and teamed up with some bright and dedicated young Lao college students and continues to act as volunteer advisor to this day as part of the Big Brother Mouse team.Because it's our customers who make these donations possible, we're eager to share the following email that we've received from Big Brother Mouse:
"We recently held a book party, and set up a book swap (what we call a
mini-library), using the donation you made to Big Brother Mouse, on Wednesday, 26 October 2011 in Ban Nangiu. Here
are a few pictures from that day. At
the end of the party all the kids got a free book of their own, nearly
always the first book they've ever owned. Then we left more books with
the school, so they can trade their book for a different one after
they've read it. We left a total of 288 books."It was an exciting day for all of the children, and we expect many of them will always remember it -- both because they had fun, and for the magic of opening a fun book for the first time, and discovering the new world that opens up. Thank you for making this possible!"
TAMMACHAT's second book party this season was held Dec. 6th in Ban Kok Ngiu. In this smaller village school, a total of 202 books were donated.
We've seen for ourselves the bright and enthusiastic Lao men and women who animate the activities at these rural book parties. For the children present, it may be not only the first time they've discovered that books can be fun, but also shows a wider range of possible jobs that they themselves might hold one day.
For more on Big Brother Mouse's work, visit their website. Take some time and poke around. You can also sponsor your own book party (in honour of someone's birthday, to commemorate an event or just because it's a great thing to do to promote literacy in a developing country) or sponsor the publishing of a new book.
Read our blog entry from last year's amazing (and mountainous) cycling trip of Big Brother Mouse supporters and staff. And enjoy these photos from our first 2 book parties where the joys of reading are introduced, along with books to each child in a village school. Three more TAMMACHAT-sponsored book parties will be held in the coming months.
We thank all our TAMMACHAT customers for making this possible!
Ellen and Alleson
