Kat Brealey is Cord’s Chair of Trustees. This summer, along with two other Trustees and CEO Andy Pask, Kat travelled to Laos to meet with our country team, partner organisations and project participants. We sat down with Kat to find out more about her experiences during this week-long visit.
Q: As you think about your time in Laos and the projects you visited and people you met, what stands out?
One of my most memorable meetings was with representatives from Association for Mutual Aid (AMA), one of the organisations Cord partners with. Originally, they had been a very small community member organisation in a remote village. The community was encouraged to relocate to Luang Prabang as part of a government scheme. AMA came with them and helped families settle and get established in their new location. On their journey to becoming a fully-fledged civil society organisation, Cord worked alongside them, helping them to become more professional, efficient and effective. Cord provided funding, enabling them to run projects, and was always available when they needed advice or support. The project coordinator told us how crucial Cord had been to the organisation’s growth. He said that at first they were like infants, but thanks to the support they’ve received, “Now we can stand on our own”. Today, AMA works alongside communities all over Laos to improve people’s livelihoods, support women and families, strengthen education and healthcare, helping them build a more secure and sustainable future.
They talked about the way Cord had supported them, “at the beginning, in the middle and at the end” of their journey to maturity. Now they’re a member of the Lao Civil Society Network. They’ve got better at proposal writing and project management. They’ve delivered projects with all kinds of international organisations including Oxfam and the United Nations. And so, they’ve managed to increase the number of people who benefit from their work.
I was really encouraged by the way Cord had accompanied a very small organisation, enabling them to grow and become much more confident. It felt like a real story of success. The project coordinator was genuinely saying, “We couldn’t have done it without you. You’ve really helped us.” And now, in turn, they’re helping thousands of other people all over Laos.
Q: Did you meet anyone that AMA had helped?
Yes, we met two women who had been trained by AMA in tailoring. As we spent time with them, I was struck – not just by the skills they had received and the opportunities this would provide to them and their families – but the many cultural, familial and economic challenges they had to navigate, to make use of those opportunities.
One of the women was separated from her husband. In order to train with AMA, she had to move from her village to a larger town – while her children stayed in the care of their father. She hoped that, in time, she might either return to her village and open a shop there, or her children would come to live with her.
There were times when the separation from her children and distance from her wider family became so difficult that she nearly dropped out of the training.
The AMA team could see her determination and potential, though, and made a real effort to support her to stay on the programme. They would phone her or visit her to offer encouragement.
It was a reminder that providing someone with a skill is only one part of helping them build a livelihood. There can be many other barriers to overcome before that opportunity becomes a reality.
The second woman we met had opened her own shop in the market after completing her training. When we visited, her husband and their baby were there too, and it was interesting to hear how they had approached the decision for her to work outside the home. The couple had discussed it together and decided that it was something they wanted to do for the benefit of their whole family.
I was reminded how much we can miss when we look at these situations from a UK perspective. Cultural expectations around women and family, economic pressures and responsibilities at home all shape what is possible. What might seem like an everyday achievement, can represent a huge amount of determination and effort.
There was also an interesting cultural difference in how strength was perceived. The women were described to us as shy, and the first woman was very quiet and reserved when speaking to us. But despite that, what we saw was a woman who had made some very difficult choices, persevered through significant challenges and was determined to improve her situation. It made me think about what it means to be strong and the different ways that this can be expressed.
Q: We talk a lot about relationships at Cord, and how important they are in building peace. Did the trip give you any new insight into this?
Yes, absolutely. One of the biggest things for me was understanding the operating context – what it actually takes to deliver projects in a country like Laos. Everything Cord does makes much more sense when you understand the relationships and structures around it.
We spent a whole day in courtesy meetings with different organisations, including officials from the Laos Front for National Development and the Laos Women’s Union. It was incredibly formal and, at times we wondered why we were doing it. But afterwards I thought – actually, that was really valuable because it showed us the reality of how things get done.
You need relationships with the right people, and you need to invest time in those relationships. I was really impressed by how seriously the Laos team takes this. They’ve built trust with the authorities and are very intentional about maintaining those relationships. From what I understand, the level of trust Cord receives is quite unusual. Other organisations ask, “How do you get to do the things that you do?” And I think part of the answer is that Cord has taken the time to build those relationships.
We saw the same thing at village level. In Laos, government representatives will often attend activities run by NGOs in order to understand what is happening. Rather than seeing that involvement as something to work around, Cord intentionally invites them to be part of the training we offer to communities. This means that they are experiencing things like sessions on nonviolent communication and have the chance to benefit from these tools.
I found that really interesting because it showed that Cord isn’t trying to work around the existing structures. It’s saying, “Come and be part of this.” That might mean things move more slowly, but it also means people who hold the power understand what’s happening and can become part of the process.
I think that’s something you can easily miss if you just look at individual projects. From the outside, development work can seem quite straightforward: identify a need, design a project and deliver it. But there’s a whole network of relationships, structures and different interests that have to be navigated, especially in complex places like Laos.
For me, that was one of the biggest insights from the trip. The relationships aren’t an extra part of Cord’s work – they’re fundamental to it. And if you’re not willing to invest the time and patience needed to build trust, your ability to have a lasting impact is going to be very limited.
