Xieng Khouang, Laos

Mrs. Phone, age 35, lives in the village of Lathsene with her husband and three beautiful children, Khamphou 12, Pou 6, and Keo 3, who she loves dearly. Phone told us that she wants only the best kind of life for her children, though providing opportunities for them is challenging because the family is poor. The family lives together in a 3-room wooden house with a thatch roof, a medium sized house by village standards.

Phone spends most of her time growing vegetables in her garden and farming the local rice fields. She told us she would love to grow different types of fruits and vegetables to provide better nutrition for her children but it is hard to do in her garden and is also quite expensive, so the vegetables they have are limited to leafy greens. Meat is also expensive, she tells us. While they like to eat meat as often as possible, they can’t afford it more than once or twice a week at the most.

Two of Phone’s children received multivitamins in school through Vitamin Angels’ partnership with Give Children a Choice, (at 12, Khamphou is older than the critical age for reaching undernourished children). Phone has been pleased to see positive results from the vitamins. She says that her children are healthier, they have more energy, they can focus better and even seem smarter.

Phone would love for her eldest son, Khamphou, to study education and become a teacher, and for her second son, Pou, to study medicine to become a doctor. She is not sure what she would like for her daughter just yet, but she knows she would like for her to become successful in whatever she does.

Our thanks to David Evans of Sanofi-Aventis for capturing this story while on an observational trip to Laos with Vitamin Angels.