2026-02-20

Our Project Manager in Laos, BounMa, and our Coordinator, Doliseang, lead several outreach sessions each year with children on hygiene, nutrition, and safe drinking water 🧼🍚🚰 These actions are essential because they also have an impact on parents and families, raising awareness throughout the entire village!

2026-02-09

We are happy to introduce Débora today, who will now be able to attend school thanks to her sponsor, who has chosen to support and accompany her on this journey 🤝 Fourteen-year-old Débora is currently in the equivalent of 3rd grade (CE2), after having been out of school for many years. Orphaned by her father at the age of two, she was entrusted to her paternal grandparents following her mother’s remarriage. She lives with them and her brother in the small village of Tapouota, in the municipality of Natitingou, in northern Benin 🇧🇯 She is very happy to be able to attend school regularly and to learn how to read 📖 Thank you for your support and trust, which help us shape a future for these children!

2026-02-07

🎵 Since the start of the school year, in partnership with the administration of Khau Ly School, we have set up Khen classes, a traditional musical instrument of the Hmong ethnic group. These classes are led by Giao, a 60-year-old father and farmer, who is also a specialist of this iconic mouth organ and a knowledgeable expert in Hmong culture. Twice a week, he passionately shares his knowledge with a group of 25 middle-school students 😊 The students were proud to present a recital during the visit of Florence, Victoire, and Sinh. Giao then amazed everyone with a danced Khen performance! A beautiful transmission of ancestral culture to the younger generation 🫶🏼🤩

2026-01-31

During their mission on site, Florence, Victoire, and Sinh visited the students of Khau Ly School, with which we have been working since late 2024. It was a great opportunity to give board games to first-grade students, donated by teachers from a school in the Paris region. Beautiful moments of sharing and discovery 😍🧩

2026-01-28

Building partnerships is essential to the success of our projects in the field. In mid-January, Florence Nguyen-Rouault, President of Sourires d’Enfants, signed a tripartite agreement with Mr. Giang, Deputy Mayor of the Phinh Ho Commune, and Ms. Nguyen Thanh Hue, Principal of Khau Ly School, providing a formal framework for the actions we have been carrying out together since 2024. Our partners are extremely motivated!

2026-01-21

Accompanied by our project manager Sinh, Florence and Victoire, President and Communications Officer of our association, are currently on a mission in the north of the country, where we launched new activities at the end of 2024. On the agenda: a feasibility mission in villages in the far north of Lào Cai province, near the Chinese border, to identify the needs of several schools, particularly in terms of access to safe drinking water 🚰, school meal facilities 🥣, and sanitation blocks 🚽. This region is mainly inhabited by the Hmong, Dao, and Ha Nhi ethnic groups. After crossing mountainous landscapes and sometimes challenging tracks, we reach villages at over 2,000 meters above sea level, where low temperatures make daily life difficult without hot water, drinking water, or heating. We have begun working on future projects with local authorities and with highly committed and dedicated teachers 😊

2026-01-15

Thanks to our partner Coachs Sans Frontières, we are launching a sport-based education program for children in the villages of Lang Khang, Laos ⚽️ After an initial session in 2024, Florent, Matthieu, Maxime, and Sébastien, all four sports coaches from the Landes region, spent two weeks in the Boualapha district training more than 200 children, organizing practice sessions and tournaments 🥇 They also helped initiate training for adults, who will themselves become future football coaches! Coachs sans Frontières funded equipment for several schools: football goals, balls, cones, bibs… as well as chicken coops for two school canteens! Thank you 🤗

2025-12-30

For the past 6 years, we have been running annual awareness-raising and information campaigns on menstruation and feminine hygiene for teenage girls in middle and high schools in Lang Khang and Boualapha. This action is essential and has significantly reduced the school dropout rate among girls who lack access to menstrual protection and proper hygiene ❤️ This December, the Sourires d’Enfants team intervened for the first time at the Naang middle and high schools, in the Kayoub area: we trained and supported 96 young girls. Through workshops, games, and activities, they learned about the different stages of the menstrual cycle and the basic rules of feminine hygiene. 📖 Each girl received a comic book on this topic designed by Laos Solidarity, reusable sanitary pads, underwear, and soap!

2025-12-27

Winters can be very cold in the mountains of northern Vietnam 🥶🇻🇳 After noticing that many children came to school barefoot in their sandals from their villages, we decided to give the 900 students of the Khau Ly primary and secondary school (Lao Cai Province) two pairs of warm socks 🧦🧦 Sinh, our project manager, carried out the distribution on Christmas Eve, to everyone’s great delight!

2025-12-22

Félicité lives with her family in a village in the commune of Boukoumbé. She is a very good student in 7th grade, even though she admits she doesn’t really like mathematics 😊 She dreams of becoming a primary school teacher one day! Her father is a hairdresser and her mother grows vegetables. Their modest income would not be enough to fund schooling for their four children. Thanks to her sponsor, who covers her school fees, meals, medical care, clothing, and school supplies, Félicité is happy to be able to go to school every day! Thank you to our sponsors who are changing these children’s lives ❤️

2025-12-08

On December 4th, Vietnam hosted an international conference with foreign Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that are established in the country and develop solidarity and development projects. Our project manager, Sinh, represented Sourires d’Enfants at this meeting in Hanoi and took part in workshops with other NGOs an opportunity to meet and exchange best practices in the field of cooperation! 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼

2025-12-07

Lucien, a 34-year-old Swiss volunteer, spent 5 months with our team in Khammouane. He brought his happiness, humanity, kindness, and professionalism to our projects, and to the children and families of Boualapha and Lang Khang 😊 Lucien, we will miss you, but we wish you lots of happiness and fulfillment in your new adventures… in Chile !

2025-11-11

🩺 The 2nd medical mission of Sourires d’Enfants in Laos just began at the Boualapha Health Center! 14 French professional, doctors, nurses, dentists, physiotherapists, and opticians, will dedicate the next two weeks to receiving, examining, diagnosing, and treating hundreds of people, young and old, many of whom have never met a doctor before. The team is supported by the three permanent staff members of Sourires d’Enfants as well as four young Lao people, fluent in French or English, who were recruited for the duration of the mission to help translate conversations between patients and healthcare providers 💬 Thank you for these wonderful moments of sharing and solidarity! 🥰

2025-11-08

Since 2024, Sourires d’Enfants has launched new projects at the Khau Ly School, located in the mountainous province of Lao Cai* in northern Vietnam, where all the students belong to the Hmong minority. In partnership with the school, we are introducing a traditional music program aimed at preserving and promoting Hmong cultural heritage, through learning to play the Khen, a traditional Hmong mouth organ. The first instruments have been delivered, and classes began this week, marking a new milestone in our commitment to education and cultural transmission! The children have shown great enthusiasm 😍 *The provinces of Yen Bai and Lao Cai merged to form the Lao Cai province.

2025-11-03

Looking back at our October 2025 mission in Laos and Vietnam 🇱🇦🇻🇳 Annie-Claude, Vice President, and Pascale, member of the Board of Directors, spent three weeks in the field: • Visit to our projects in Laos and meetings with the local team and project beneficiaries: the program included the distribution of sports equipment in schools, awareness-raising on access to safe drinking water systems, meetings with seamstresses trained by SDE, and… the official presentation of the Best Foreign NGO in Education award, granted for the second time to Sourires d’Enfants! A proud moment and a wonderful recognition of our work 😌 • Meeting with Sinh, our Project Manager, in Vietnam, and the purchase of local and traditional handicrafts that you were able to discover at our Christmas market stalls

2025-10-31

💧🚰 Access to water is a real challenge, and access to drinking water even more so! Since 2023, thanks to a partnership with Agir Ensemble, we have installed 12 Safe Water Cube fountains that make any water, even dirty or muddy water, safe to drink thanks to a system of five successive filters. But providing drinking water is not enough: it is essential to raise awareness, train and inform beneficiaries so that they are fully aware of the importance of drinking healthy water for their health 🩺 October was devoted to this awareness-raising effort, with the Sourires d'Enfants team spending several days in schools in the Lang Khang group, with the following programme: - showing cartoons about bacteria and diseases linked to unsafe drinking water, - skits performed by older children to highlight the purity of the water from the fountains, - educational games, - information sessions organised in collaboration with the Boualapha district health service. The children were very involved and many parents also participated 🤩. We plan to repeat these sessions regularly to reinforce good habits and ensure the long-term effects of our prevention and awareness-raising efforts!

2025-10-07

Our 15 school canteens in Laos have been back in action since the start of the school year in September! Every day, volunteer parents come to lend a hand preparing meals, serving the children, and doing the dishes! We have organised cooking classes and raised awareness about nutritional balance among parents and teachers. A vegetable garden and chicken coop provide a regular supply of vegetables and eggs!

2025-10-01

One of our major initiatives in Benin is the installation and monitoring of solar lighting systems in schools, essential equipment that allows students to keep studying in the evening, as they don’t have electricity at home 💡☀️ Together with the technicians from our partner Les Milles Lucioles, we ensure the maintenance of solar panels and batteries in more than 60 schools across the commune of Boukoumbé in northern Benin: every two months, each school is visited for inspection, maintenance, and bulb replacement… ✅ This regular follow-up is crucial to ensure the long-term sustainability of the installations!

2025-09-25

🏫 Over 900 students, from 1st to 5th grade, started their school year at Khau Ly School in Lao Cai Province in northern Vietnam at the beginning of September! 725 of them are boarders and live in difficult conditions: no showers, poorly maintained toilets, insufficient access to water, and overcrowded dormitories. We are currently working with the Phinh Ho Commune and the school’s management on joint projects for new infrastructure. We are awaiting administrative approvals to begin water access improvements and build showers and toilets by the end of 2025 💧🚿🚽 Sinh, our project manager, conducted a survey with the students to understand their needs and desires regarding hygiene and privacy. We design our projects with input from all stakeholders!

2025-09-10

All children sponsored by Sourires d'Enfants received school supplies, a bag and clothes for the new school year, so they could get off to the best possible start!