I spent 2005 to 2006 in Laos and the poverty was pretty desperate.

But now it is worse, and today, April 15, 2008 in the New York Times there is an article on the front page. But you have to put that in conjunction with the World Food Program report http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=210500017 on food shortage as well as the US Drug Report on Laos that says that they know there are starvation conditions in the villages after their opium eradication program. http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2008/vol1/html/100780.htm

Very grim.

That is some background in why we are motivated to publicize and change the circumstances, of what is going on with the Akha, a good people, in desperate times.