Help A Young Man Succeed

Tou is 12 years old, his nickname is Dasha because although is very small he is very fast and athletic.

Tou has written a letter to you all but I cannot add it as its too big. If you would like to read it please email me office@bookatour.co.nz.

Life in a Laos village is very hard. Tou has left his parents and siblings and come to Luang Prabang city to go to school GREAT we say however schools here are corrupt! Tou and other children have marks taken off them if their hair is not cut correctly, or if they cannot afford shoes. So grades are not about brains they are about how much money you have.

Sadly for Tou his parents have no money. Tou has begged to be able to stay and learn and currently lives with 10 other boys and a Americam volunteer. I met Tou at Big Brother Mouse a publisher house who opens its doors twice a day to let adolescents met volunteer foreigners to speak with each other to learn English. Altought is amazing sometime they have no volunteern foreigners to speak with them so Dasha literally writes the dictionary! His school book is recycled with no cover and in replace of a cover he has placed newspaper. However inside these pages are the most neatly written words in English as a teacher i think Ive ever seen from a boy as a second language, He spends every waking moment trying to talk to foreigners so he learns English or at the library going through the dictionary 7 days a week....dedication huh. He does not get a dinner until around 9pm at night and lives with around 10 boys all in the same boat.

What struck me as different and hence the need to be able to help Tou is his inspiration in wanting to help others and succeed in doing this. His interests are not to escape his country but purely to come back and help other children to get an education that have no money...a true inspiration we can all learn from.

Please help me help Tou come to NZ. In the first instance I'm willing to put up care and board FOC but Tou wants to go to school - this costs around $16,000 per year in NZ for an international student. My dream is to help Tou come to NZ in any capacity if we only reach enough for an experience then so be that if we can sponsor him for a year he will personally write you all a letter.

I bought him a new school bag and uniform for his first day at Luang Prabang School - this was a result of i asking if I could do something nice for him whilst in Laos - his response please may a have a school bag and uniform. How many 12 year olds say that!