How SMP LeBlanc Helped Bring a Long-Stalled School Project to Life in Don Phoung, Laos

In 2024, we partnered with PRÉCI as a Gold Sponsor to support the construction of a maternity center in Gasiza, Rwanda. In 2025, we remained a Gold Sponsor. This time, our partnership brought us to Don Phoung, a rural village in the Xanakham district of Laos, to support the completion of a five-classroom primary school now serving more than 100 children.

Photo Credits: PRÉCI

A Quick Look Back: The Maternity Center That Changed Gasiza, Rwanda

For a couple of years now, we’ve been proud to partner with PRÉCI (Programme de Regroupement Étudiant pour la Coopération Internationale), a student-led international cooperation program out of the École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) in Montreal. 

Last year, our partnership with PRÉCI took us to Gasiza, a remote region in Rwanda, and at the time, nearly 50 women each month were walking more than 4.5 hours through mountainous terrain to reach the nearest health post. More than 80 percent were giving birth along the roadside, in unsafe and precarious conditions. 

Today, women in Gasiza have a safe, accessible place to receive care. It’s the kind of outcome that reminds you why partnerships like these matter. 

Last year’s project in Laos was no different. These are two very different projects, but the thread that connects them is the same, as both address critical gaps in essential infrastructure.

Photo Credits: PRÉCI

What Our Gold Sponsorship Helped Bring to Life

This year, PRÉCI’s 31st project brought the team to the village of Don Phoung in the Xanakham district of Laos. And while the setting is different, the need was just as urgent.

The village’s existing school was falling apart. Literally. The building had deteriorated to the point where it was at risk of collapse, and many parents in the community made the difficult decision to keep their children home rather than send them into a structure they considered unsafe. The school was operating at less than half its capacity. Not because families didn’t value education, but because the environment was simply too dangerous.

An effort to build a replacement had been started over a decade ago, but it stalled due to lack of funding and never got finished. On top of that, the village had no adequate latrines and limited access to clean water, creating health risks that compounded the education gap.

So the PRÉCI 2025 team, six engineering students with their sleeves rolled up and their technical training ready to go, took on the challenge.

Photo Credits: PRÉCI

What Got Built in Don Phoung (And Why It Matters)

Over four months, the team and the local community worked side by side to build a space that will serve generations of students to come.

The primary school includes:

• 5 classrooms spanning 310 square meters, which is enough space for well over 100 students, including children from surrounding communities who previously had nowhere to go. 

The team also:

• constructed a sanitary block to improve hygiene conditions, 
• built a protective structure around the village’s existing well to safeguard the drinking water supply, and
• installed latrines that the community didn’t have before.

But it didn’t stop there. The project expanded to include:

• an educational garden, 
• sports fields with proper courts for soccer, volleyball, and badminton, 
• an incinerator for waste management (a first for the village), 
• terracing and drainage across the school grounds, 
• renovated teachers’ offices, two new water wells, and 
• the distribution of ceramic water filters in partnership with the Laotian organization TerraClear.

Every student received a personal kit with school supplies, a reusable water bottle, notebooks, and basic hygiene items like a toothbrush and toothpaste. It’s a small thing on paper. But for a child who’s never had those tools, it changes the first day of school entirely.

On February 26, 2026, we attended PRÉCI’s impact event in Quebec, where the team walked sponsors through the construction journey in Don Phoung and presented the milestones, challenges, and outcomes made possible through our collective support.

Photo Credits: PRÉCI

The Part That Sticks With Us

We build systems that keep people comfortable and safe inside buildings. That’s our day-to-day. So when we see a community come together to construct a school where children can actually learn without worrying about the roof caving in, it resonates with us on a level that’s hard to put into words.

The PRÉCI team worked alongside local foremen and dozens of villagers who showed up day after day to help. They poured over 5,600 buckets of gravel for the concrete slab alone. They dug foundations in extreme heat. They navigated roads that would make any Quebecer grateful for our highways (and that’s saying something). They built not just a school, but trust, relationships, and a shared sense of accomplishment with the people of Don Phoung.

The local partner organization, School for Kids in Laos (SKL), had already secured teachers before construction even began. A maintenance committee has been formed and trained. SKL will continue to oversee fundraising for upkeep and repairs. With local leadership in place, structured maintenance, and long-term oversight, the school is positioned to serve the community for generations to come.

Photo Credits: PRÉCI

Why We Keep Showing Up

We know what it takes to build something that works. We know the difference between a structure that just looks finished and one that’s actually designed to serve the people inside it for years to come. 

That understanding is what draws us to PRÉCI. Their approach mirrors something we value deeply in our own work: do it right, do it with precision, and make sure it holds up long after you’ve left.

Our expertise lives in the mechanical systems of Quebec’s most demanding buildings. But our values don’t stop at the provincial border. Supporting PRÉCI gives us a way to extend what we care about, community wellbeing, and lasting impact, to communities that need it most.

Photo Credits: PRÉCI

Same Values and Commitment, Different Coordinates

We believe buildings shape outcomes. In Quebec, that means making sure complex systems operate safely and efficiently. In Don Phoung, it meant helping ensure that a classroom is stable, sanitation is functional, and clean water is protected.

We are not just in the business of systems and performance. We are in the business of environments that allow people to move forward. We’re proud to be part of that. And we’re excited to see where PRÉCI’s 32nd project takes us next.

If you’d like to learn more about PRÉCI’s work or how you can get involved, visit preci.etsmtl.ca.