Here’s how I was introduced to the Big Brother Mouse initiative. I was on the Luang Say cruise boat travelling down then Mekong River in Laos. We’d moored near a remote Khmu village and we’d been looking at the way the local people lived. Then, all of a sudden, we came upon this tall American who, bit by bit, explained why he was there.
Sasha had sold his publishing business in Boston, looking for a new challenge, and had gravitated to Laos. He was amazed to discover just how few books there seemed to be around. Many schools seemed to get by without a single textbook in Lao or any other language. Believing that literacy is the best route to self-improvement, he pondered what could be done. He spent some time talking to Government people, to see what their attitude would be. There are a number of Non-Governmental Organisations operating in Laos and that seemed a possible way to fund the initiative. But, after financing the project with his own money for a time, Sasha persuaded a Lao national to set up a company and the American became an unpaid advisor and informal fund raiser.
So how does it work? Firstly, Big Brother Mouse produces high-quality picture books printed in colour where the pictures are accompanied by text in Lao (and sometimes English as well). Already, there are over 50 books for different ages on different topics. They may re-tell a traditional tale (not necessarily a Lao story – Sherlock Holmes has been given the ‘Big Brother Mouse’ treatment) or talk about Wonders of the World, Dinosaurs, Astronomy, anything. The only requirement is that the text should be clear and the pictures entertaining. Text, pictures and printing are done by Lao people in Laos. The aim is to engage the imagination of the reader and to show that reading is fun.
The idea that reading is fun is probably alien to most of the target audience, unfamiliar as they are with books. So a key strategy is to introduce them to the books in a fun environment – the Book Party. Big Brother Mouse arranges the date and time with the local school teacher and all the pupils are invited to a Book Party.
Here’s how the Book Party I attended worked. Three young Lao people from Big Brother Mouse had travelled on the boat, bringing the materials needed. At this village, the three-classroom school was a little way out of the main village, next to a large playing field. The pupils (around 100 at this location) were formed up into a ring on the playing field and the Big Brother Mouse team soon had them shouting and cheering and playing simple games. When it came to the three-legged race, the foreign tourists were invited to join in and a few of us did, hobbling round in a big circle to a lot of laughing and cheering. A refinement was to equip one pair of boys with grotesque masks and this pair could eliminate other participants by touching them. The game went on until everybody had been ‘tagged’.
Now the foreign tourists were invited to take part in the issuing of supplies. A selection of Big Brother Mouse books were laid out and each young person was allowed to choose a book to take away. My role was to issue three sheets of A4 paper and a pencil (with an eraser at the end) to each child. They each made an attempt to give a Lao ‘thank you’ with palms together, but it was clear that some of them were uneasy at approaching these strange foreigners. The local teacher is issued with a ‘Swap Box’ so that children can exchange their book, once read, for another title.
This marvellous initiative has been running for a few years and is expanding. Foreign visitors coming to Laos have been sufficiently impressed to keep the project going. The Website allows anyone to make a contribution to the work.
