IATSS Forum

Sabaidee, Hi everyone! I am Vangvichit Kittikhoun from Lao PDR. I work as a lecturer at the Faculty of Education, Souphanouvong University which located in Luangprabang, a world heritage city. I am very honored to be selected to join the 56th batch of the IATSS Forum in Japan. I feel very excited to meet new friends from Japan and ASEAN countries. I am ready to learn new things, leadership styles and cultures from them. Although it is not the first time that I have been to abroad, I feel very excited to go to Japan. I heard that Japanese are friendly and very polite to visitors so I would like to see from my eyes. One friend told me that more than 70% of their land covers by forest so I think that Japan is a beautiful and nice weather country. I will take this opportunity to learn and share ideas and knowledge with friends from other countries through the various programs at the IATSS Forum provided. I believe that it will be a memorable time and experience for me and all participants. Then we can make networking and keep in touch each other for a long time in the future. Looking forward to seeing everyone soon!

What you have done so far to make your society better since you returned from Japan. One week after returning from Japan, I immediately worked at academic affairs division, Faculty of Education, Souphanouvong University (SU) at the same time I was assigned to be a LANS (Lao Australian National Scholarship) teacher. LANS is a scholarship supported by Australian government to very poor and disable students as well as least opportunity students who are from remote areas of Laos. Most awardees have studied at SU. 20 scholarships were provided to students at SU this year. I taught 12 hours per week including 6 hours for LANS class and 6 hours for English program students. On 14th December 2016, I helped Prof. Adachi from Japan to hold a half day workshop at SU under the topic “One Village One Product” and “Japan Modernization”. I was selected to be as an organizer and translator for this workshop. More than 500 participants including teachers and students from SU attended this workshop. This workshop enhanced both teachers and students at SU in terms of sustainable community development and economic development planning. One month after coming back home, I organized Lao Cultural Festival under the theme of “Understanding Diversity” which held on January6, 2017 at Faculty of education, SU. This event aimed to promote Lao minority groups’ tradition and culture as well as promoted students, teachers, villagers and participants to be aware of culture diversity. More than 1,000 people from 25 ethnic groups including students, teachers from SU, villagers and tourists joint this festival. This event was supported by IATSS Forum, Japan. In summary I could say that the IATSS Forum training had great impact to me. First impact is my work career promotion. The second is building the community work to help and develop my community.