Pooja Shah

Posted on 31. May 202015. March 2021 by Holger Melzow

is a volunteer project member at Reading Elephant Laos since January 2021. She is a British born Indian and came from a background in Fashion Marketing. Pooja’s love of yoga set her off on a quest to the East to delve deeper into her search into spirituality and through this journey alongside the national crisis of corona, she found herself working as an English teacher in Huayxay and in her spare time, being involved passionately with our project. Pooja is incredibly dedicated to using her time...

Yim Sang Pha Sert (Yim)

Posted on 2. March 202010. March 2021 by Holger Melzow

Yim is a part time student employee at Reading Elephant Laos. Yim was born and raised in Hom Souk, Pha Oudom district, Bokeo province where he also finished the primary school. Afterwards he visited the higher secondary school in Ponglad village. Today he is studying at Thonysaba College in Ban Houayxay. Yim is keen to improve his English and is about to graduate from college. After that, he would like to work on the project full-time. Yim organises the tours with our e-book mobile to the primar...

Posted on 16. February 202023. June 2020 by Holger Melzow

“Accompanying the team to a school for a book festival day is an immense asset. You will probably learn more about the country and its people there than in 2 weeks. In addition, the children are very open and interested, which is an additional pleasure.” Karin, Theater Director from Berlin, Germany (Feb. 2020)

Posted on 11. October 201923. June 2020 by Holger Melzow

„It is great at anytime to visit Reading Elephant Laos. We, as RAM travel organization, often come across Houayxay or Laos. It's beautiful to interact with children in the Reading Room, but also, when it is possible, to be part of a village excursion to see what you do around in the villages of the Bokeo province. Reading Elephant Laos is firmly on the map of our tours, that come from Thailand and then proceed down south to Luang Prabang by boat. We consider Reading Elephant Laos as one of our r...

Nicolas Kervarec

Posted on 7. October 201911. February 2020 by Holger Melzow

Nicolas is a volunteer project member at Reading Elephant Laos from September to about December 2019. He is French national and worked during 18 years in a bank in France. Last year he travelled during 6 months in different countries and passed by our project room in Ban Houayxay. When he came back to France, he decided that his next trip will be to help others. So he decided to join our team for volunteering by helping to make Reading Elephant's reading room more popular among Lao people in tow...

Posted on 16. September 201923. June 2020 by Holger Melzow

"Two months experience as a volunteer with a dedicated and motivated team; my tasks varied between presenting the project for passing tourists, chatting and basic English lessons for students, trips to schools in neighboring villages and various other things ... the work is concrete and useful! The welcome from the team, volunteers on site as well as students and teachers in the villages was always excellent! An enriching experience for me! I hope to return there soon to be able to help again." ...

Posted on 15. February 201923. June 2020 by Holger Melzow

"I have started to become a volunteer of Reading Elephant since January 2019. This was the period when I conducted my intensive fieldwork in Bokeo Province, Northern Laos. Volunteering in this organization was really a wonderful experience. My experiences of teaching English to Buddhist monks and Lao students — both in Houaysai and other remote villages of the province — have enabled me not only to share my knowledge and pieces of my broken heart, but also to learn and reflect on life. Apart fro...

Posted on 11. February 201923. June 2020 by Holger Melzow

"We visited Bokeo in February 2019, first in the beautiful shop and then to a book festival in a village school. We helped loading and distributing the books. The many children were very excited and curious and were happy to be able to read a book. The lunch break was unforgettable. The teachers caught fish for us in the nearby stream and grilled them over the fire - a delight with herbs and rice!" Helmut and Carsten from Lychen / Uckermark, Germany (Feb. 2019)

Posted on 12. July 201813. June 2020 by Holger Melzow

"After a 40 days of riding on my motorbike around in the beautiful nature of Laos, I reached this northern Thai-Laos border town. At Reading Elephant Laos’ reading room I saw that they were looking for volunteer conversation partners. So, I walked in and sat for a 2 hours with the kids, I told them about my much loved home country, Hungary and showed it to them on the globe, and we exchanged some words in our languages. We laughed and played by using the English exercise books, to practice the l...

Posted on 31. January 201823. June 2020 by Holger Melzow

"I had the chance to join the book party activities of Reading Elephant Laos a few times which is usually in remote schools. I always feel happy to see the excited and enthusiastic eyes of these kids for the story books that Reading Elephant team brings for them to read. They search for the books they like and read with attention lay on the mats and tell their friends about the story. They always look happy to read the books and have fun activity with the Reading Elephant team. They look sad whe...