Long-held dream comes true for battling Laos player

For the past six months, Phonpasith 'Ollo' Sansayya, has been doing odd jobs in Vientiane so he can raise money to realise a dream - to come to Hong Kong to watch the Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens.

That dream will become a reality next weekend for the Laos flanker after he plays in the Altus Kowloon RugbyFest.

'I have worked hard for the past six months to contribute to this trip,' says Ollo, part of a representative side of senior and under-20 national team players from Laos.

They will follow in the path of a team from Rwanda, who were also fostered by the Kowloon 10s in 2010, continuing the role of good samaritans played by Hong Kong's rugby community in helping lesser privileged countries develop their game.

And it doesn't get any poorer than Laos, one of the least developed nations in the world where close to one-third of the population lives on under US$1 a day and where 50 per cent of rural children under the age of five are severely malnourished.

A country still recovering from the grim legacy of the second Indochina war in which more than two million tonnes of ordnance was dropped - a recent study showed nearly 30 per cent of the bombs remain live under the ground - the children of Laos face extreme risks on a day-to-day basis while engaged in normal life, including play.