Story to Share: Coverage of Diversity

We were asked recently why we post many items on our website about different provinces and ethnic groups in Laos. We're happy to explain why.

We put up such posts primarily for 2 reasons:

1. Because we want to show our visitors stuff that they may not have known or seen before.  Lesser known provinces and groups are often overlooked.  And also because a lot of people (even Lao people ourselves) sometimes forget that there are 17 other provinces and a wide variety of ethnic groups in Laos who speak different languages, wear different clothes, celebrate different occassions, and so fourth.  For such a small country, Laos is very culturally diverse internally, and that's not even including the many immigrants from other countries.  It's important to be culturally aware.
    
2. With Laos developing more and with increased number of migration of people into the city, there will be more contact with people from all over Laos.  So learning more about the different cultures is important - and never a bad thing.  Also even iNGOs who previously used to base most of their work in Vientiane and Luangprabang are directing more of their work towards all these other locations and groups in different provinces which is a good thing.

What it comes down to is simply sharing information with our visitors. :-)