“Girls at remote schools receiving warm clothing and other support from Minors are now attending school more days per year.”
- Ms. Ma Thi Duyen, Former Deputy Head, Division of Social Protection Dep’t of Labor, Invalids & Social Affairs of Bac Kan Province
As of 2024, Minors has distributed 87,000 sweaters, 28,350 woolen caps, and more than 2,000 blankets to boarding students and other severely impoverished children at more than 600 remote northern highland kindergartens, primary and middle schools, & at centers for orphaned, abandoned and handicapped children, helping them to stay in school through the winter months when temperatures drop below freezing.
Cold Class
Shivering children in a Primary School in sub freezing morning temperatures
Most students without coats, sweaters at this Primary School (Meo Vac - Ha Giang)
Dual function blackboard doubles as windbreak, at a first grade classroom in Lai Chau.
In a Primary School a severe shortage of coats and sweaters (Muong Khuong - Lao Cai)
Cold Kitchens
In freezing evening temperatures, boarding students in Ha Giang seek warmth from a kettle fire, with just sticks to heat greens they raised in the school garden.
The only source of heat in the entire village, the school kitchen draws a neighboring family to keep their youngest warm.
Boarding students at schools across the northern mountains are often seen on cold windy nights huddled around their cooking fires, as in Dien Bien.
Cold Kinder
In the rush to establish kindergartens as mandated, communes and villages used whatever materials were available or affordable. All buildings at all schools are unheated, and usually without electricity or water; wind resistance and rain protection are the priorities.
Cold Dorms
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Blankets
11,790 Blankets have been provided for Boarding Students, but as they often shared by two or more students, we are not sure of the number of children who are sleeping warmer in the sub-freezing nights.
Bunk Beds
138 bunk beds and 361 single beds have been provided at Commune Boarding schools to date, for a total of 667 beds, and with doubling and tripling up, the number of unique sleepers is anybody's guess.
Photo by Department of Education and Training, Bac Ha District, Lao Cai.
Nets
Like beds and blankets, often shared by two or more students or sewn together for group coverage, boarding students at commune schools over the past two decades have received 11,450 mosquito nets from Minors.
A commune primary boarding student shares this bed, study place, blanket and mosquito net with two fellow students, Muong Nhe District, Dien Bien
Towels
8,400 hand towels, as well as 4,000 rain sheets and ponchos have been provided to boarding students and kindergarteners in our five project provinces as of this year.
A commune primary boarding student shares this bed, study place, blanket and mosquito net with two fellow students, Muong Nhe District, Dien Bien
Delivery
Elated boarding students receiving sweaters on cold days.
These boys and just two girls were the boarding students at this remote mountain school in Dong Van, Ha Giang. The local children had all stopped coming already as the unheated classroom was too cold; it even snows here some times. On the day we arrived to visit the school these boarders were about to all go back to their villages as it was too cold to stay at the school, but provided with sweaters and blankets they agreeed to stay on....otherwise they would likely have dropped school probably for good.
Warmed Up
