The life story of Onsi
My family includes our parents, one older sister, three younger sisters, and one younger brother.
My father became ill in 1997 and passed away. My mother took care of six children. At that time my older sister was 10 years old, I was 7 years old, and four younger siblings were still small.
Written in Lao by Onsi and translated by Malichanh of CWS office
I was born May 9, 1990 in Sivilay village, Nan district.
My family includes my parents, one older sister, three younger sisters, and one younger brother.
My father became ill in 1997 and passed away. My mother took care of six children. At that time my older sister was 10 years old, I was 7 years old, and four younger siblings were still small.
One day my mother heard about the orphan ethnic school and she went to inquire and introduce me to the village and district authority. She ran documents for me and I was given permission to attend the orphanage school in LPB city. I was 7 years old and began grade 1 and lived in the school dormitory.
I still remember when I was in grade 5, 11 years old, there were some organizations that came to the school and gave funds to help orphans like me. Especially the CWS organization, there was Mme Xuyen who assisted us with many things. She also taught us some different activities such as embroidery, dance, songs to sing, clown, drawing, and how to write news about our school activities.
Our writer’s club wrote stories and posted them on the school board, made posters for the library, and wrote Mme Xuyen monthly about our school activities until I graduated from grade 8 at Luang parabang orphanage school in 2004.
The same year, being a good student in Lao literature in my class, I entered the writing competition and won third prize on Saturday, March 5, 2004. Then I was selected to move to Santiphap school for talented students where there is also a dormitory for us to live in. The talented children came from 8 Northern provinces .
At that time again, only my mother supported me with school expenses. Many times we did not have enough because all my younger siblings also attended school . My older sister got married and moved way to live with her husband. Since I left the orphanage school my life became very difficult. I faced many obstacles. Sometimes I thought of giving up school but I just tried harder. I was able to continue until 2007, at last I graduated from grade 11 in Santiphap Senior High School. I wanted to learn more but I had no more money.
I took the exam to enter the Souphanouvong University, but was not able to enter the scholarship program so I had to take a special evening course.
I went back to my village to talk with my mother. She did her best and found 500,000kip for me to pay tuition for the first semester. One of my young sisters had to drop-out so she could earn money to assist me and the other younger sibling. My sister rented a house at That luang village and I live with her. The rent was 250,000kip per month. I used her bike to go to school. The course that I take is a five year course. It is a teacher training course under the Faculty of Education of Souphanouvong ( a branch of The National University of Laos). I am trained to be a Teacher and I will be able to teach Lao language for high school students when I graduate. I finished year 1 with the support of my mother and sister. But, in the second year the bike was stolen and I had no money to pay for tuition. One day I met Mr. Phet who asked me about my studies. I told him about my situation . He gave me the phone number of CWS and said that I might be able to receive some help. I decided to phone you to tell you about my life story.
I wish you good health and success in your work.
Thank you Madame for listening to my story. I hope to have your answer and good suggestion from you.
With high respect,
Onsi
Luang pra bang
Submitted by,
Xuyen Dangers, Laos
Xuyen Dangers is a social worker in Laos/Vietnam. She serves as a Social work supervisor of Donkoi child center and 5 other centers, Social work advisor, Faculty of Social Sciences, and the National University of Laos.