Just One Moment of Courage Changed Me
In a mountain village in northern Laos, a peer-to-peer programme helped a shy teenager find his voice and the courage to dream beyond the horizon.
- English
- ລາວ
The first time Koun Daosavanh stood up to speak in front of his classmates, his hands were shaking and his heart was racing. He spoke anyway.
When he finished, the room broke into applause. His teacher praised him. For a boy who had spent years sitting silent at the back of the classroom, certain that a wrong answer would make his classmates laugh, it was the moment everything changed.
“That day made me realise that just one moment of courage can make me more confident.”
Koun is 15. He lives in a village high in the hills of Xieng Khouang Province in northern Laos, where he studies in Grade 10 at the local secondary school. It is the kind of place where opportunities for young people can be few, and where a quiet child can easily go unheard. After class he plays sports with his friends; at home, he helps with the chores and looks after his young nephew.
Not long ago, he barely spoke at all.
“Before, I was a shy boy. If a new person didn’t speak to me first, I would never be brave enough to start talking to them.”
There was so much he wanted to do — raise his hand, answer a question, stand up in front of the class, but fear held him back every time. Afraid of getting the wrong answer, afraid of being laughed at, he let opportunity after opportunity slip past.
Then his teacher told the class about a peer-to-peer life skills programme, where young people learn from and support one another. Run by the Provincial Lao Women’s Union with support from the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP) and UNICEF Lao PDR, it brings together the kind of learning a young person in rural Laos rarely finds in a textbook. Koun didn’t hesitate. He joined straight away.
Across 14 lessons, the programme covers the things that quietly shape a young person’s future — from staying safe from drugs, alcohol and tobacco, to understanding risk and protecting their health, to making good decisions and solving problems. But what changed Koun was not only what he learned — it was how. Through games, group work and honest conversation with friends, a shy boy slowly found room to speak.
Group work became his favourite. It was there, he says, that he learned success “doesn’t happen because of one person” — but through collaboration and trust.
The programme gave him something else, too: the confidence to choose his own path. Around him, some young people drift towards drinking, smoking, or leaving school behind — choices that, Koun believes, can quietly close down a future. He decided to go a different way. His reason was simple, and deeply his own.
“I don’t want to let my parents down. I want to have a future. I believe that decision will lead me to a bright one.”
Today Koun puts what he learned to use every day — making informed choices, solving problems, and, above all, finding the courage to say no. And he doesn’t keep it to himself. He passes it on to his family and to other young people in his village, so that they, too, can choose well.
The boy who was once too shy to speak now helps lead the sessions himself, as a facilitator.
“My voice has been heard. The people around me listen to my opinion, and they see that what I say matters.”
He has something he wants adults everywhere to understand — that young people today carry real weight on their shoulders, from studying, from expectation, from the world around them. “Sometimes we just want someone to listen to us and understand us,” he says. “Not to pressure us.”
And to any young person still standing where he once stood, afraid to step forward, he offers the truth he found for himself.
“I used to be like you — shy, afraid to talk. My decision that day changed my life. If you hesitate, you will lose so many opportunities. Don’t close the door. One day, you will be proud of yourself.”
As for his own future, Koun is reaching far beyond his mountain village — further than anyone might have imagined of the quiet boy at the back of the class.
“I want to be an astrophysicist,” he says, “and study the physics of galaxies, stars, and the universe.” He knows it is a long road from his village to the stars.
But he has already done the hardest part. He stood up, he spoke, and people listened.
One Story Among Thousands
Koun is one of 1,180 young people who took part in the peer-to-peer life skills programme in 2026, as the Provincial Lao Women’s Union with support from the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP) and UNICEF Lao PDR brought it to 27 schools across four districts of Xieng Khouang Province.
But the need reaches far beyond them. An estimated 7,000 more young people in the province and most of them aged 13 to 17, in lower and upper secondary school are still waiting for the same chance, across roughly two-thirds of its schools that the programme has yet to reach. These are the very years when a young person’s path can quietly be decided, and when the right support, or its absence, can shape everything that follows.
With continued partnership, the programme can grow to reach them, so that thousands more shy children at the back of the classroom find the courage to raise their hands, and their voices.
