Bounmy Souvannalath, the First Lao Social Worker
Bounmy Souvannalath is the first Lao Social worker. She is a 22 year old woman running a halfway house for recovering drug abusers and a center for child development.
Bounmy Souvannalath is the first Lao Social worker. She is a 22 year old woman running a halfway house for recovering drug abusers and a center for child development.
As a young Lao woman, Bounmy did not see any future after graduation from high school before she met Global Ministries Xuyen Dangers in the summer 2000. Xuyen asked her to write her dream. Bounmy wrote: I want to do something to help others. Xuyen put her to work doing volunteer work at the Donkoi Child Development Center and Bounmy’s life began to change.
After Donkoi, Bounmy worked at Vientiane International School for two months before going to the United States for one year on an international exchange program under the Mennonite Central Committee.
When she returned to Laos she had a choice to work with the International School or with the Donkoi village in their poor village school and children’s center. She chose to work again with Donkoi, where she could continue to learn social work with Xuyen. Due to her work with Xuyen, UNICEF supported Bounmy’s visit to Stockholm, Sweden, for an international conference on residential care. When she saw Swedish social workers in action, she was even more inspired.
A year later, Global Ministries provided a scholarship for Bounmy to study in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Bounmy returned to Laos in September 2005 and two days later she began to work at her own village in the Tammakhung Drug Rehabilitation Center. She is the first Lao social worker with a two-year diploma in Social Work.
Bounmy said that before she met Xuyen, she did not know that professional social work was different from charity work. Now she has received a good foundation of social work courses at the university level and has learned basic social work skills, methods, and lots of codes of ethics. With her natural dedication plus over three years’ experience in volunteer work and international exposure, she is now applying all that she has learned and experienced. Xuyen says Bounmy can provide direct social services but she is also given a challenge to learn management as the manager of Tamamkhung. With this new responsibility, Bounmy will also have a chance to practice advocacy, an area in which she has shown great potential.
Bounmy is studying English in her spare time. Once in a while Xuyen takes Bounmy to the National University of Laos to assist Xuyen in teaching a course on Social Problems or to be a facilitator in workshops, so Bounmy is learning training as well!
Congratulations, Bounmy, for being the first Lao Social Worker and having a job of running a child center in your own village at this very young age! Your life is an inspirtation! Bounmy’s dream is to pursue a Masters Degree in Social Work or in a development field some day. Xuyen thinks with her determination, her hard work and her natural compassion she will succeed one day.
Edited from story by Xuyen Dangers: Office of Resource Development
Global Ministries
P.O. Box 1986
Indianapolis, IN 46206
Tel: (317) 713-2555
Fax: (317) 635-4323
Email: gifts@dom.disciples.org
March 2008