Having made attempts to sort out a proper schedule for my weekly work, I have selected Tuesdays for work on the Thai Schools English project.
Today I visited, and shall do every Tuesday, Huay Sai School to assist with teaching English conversation to Mattayom 1.
When that is finished I will then be working on building up the courses and lessons available to users of the thaischoolsenglish website, for the rest of the day.
I also hope to find time to visit and encourage more local schools to join our program.
Todays lesson was centred on basic introduction.
Although the children were a little nervous at first we soon broke through that and I was impressed with the students efforts.
For more photos please visit our photobucket album here.
If you are interested in the school website, please go here.
On Wednesday 21st I went for a long overdue meeting with Khruu Khem of Huay Sai School. Huay Sai is one of the schools on www.thaischoolsenglish.org, a project run in association with our Foundation, with a view to promoting English language learning in the local community.
Having been very busy ensuring registration for the Foundation I had been unable to give the thaischoolsenglish project any time over recent months. Now as I consolidate my daily routine I hope to resume my assistance with this worthwhile project.
In return Khruu Khem has agreed to be a regular visitor to the home, by way of offering some independant monitoring of our work.
She will come to visit the Childrens Home and be able to speak freely with the children on all aspects of their life here at Stratton House.
A big thankyou to my Mum for the recent arrival of a package of ladybird books for the children to practise reading English;
and also for the hand puppet soft toy for May 2 , to replace the one she had on her birthday which she left at home in Nan during Aprils home visit.
All the children here at Stratton House Childrens Home, were very happy and all say thankyou very much and they can’t wait to meet you when you come.
Seven and a bit months since we officially opened and nearly a year since started this project has seen much funding by the Directors. We have a few regular supporters and a couple of child sponsors, who add a little to the coffers.
Whilst still in the process of registration it is difficult to go out and find the bigger sponsors that we need to ensure that our work goes on here.
We would like to ask all that know and trust us and anyone who finds this site and likes what we are doing, to find it in their hearts to look at the ways they could help.
Please take some time to browse the online shop. We hope to extend the range of goods available, with all profit going into the Foundation Funds.
Please consider joining the ‘Because You Care Club’ and let us send special greetings to your loved ones on their Birthdays. Or perhaps you would like to become a sponsor for one of our children and get personalised updates on their progress, exchange letters , gifts etc.
You can donate online using the button on the right of the page.
Maybe, if you have the time and inclination, you could join our Australian friends, Faa Gamma, and organise a fund raising team and get your efforts featured on this site.
As the old saying goes, every little bit helps.
If you would like to fund something in particular please take a look at our wishlist.
Everyone here at Stratton House thanks you for your interest and any help you may be able to give.
This is a much overdue report on our first volunteers here at Stratton House.
After a friend passed on details of our work here,
Two lovely ladies from Switzerland got in touch and expressed a wish to come and help out for a few days during their holiday in Thailand.
It was right at the start of the school holidays so we were glad of the offer of assistance.
We picked up Mikki and Siva,(hope I got the names right girls), from Chiang Mai, on Sunday 28th March on our way to Huay Tung Tao.
After another great afternoons water play there, the girls came back to Stratton House with us and stayed for 5 days.
Their visit was much appreciated by all and in the short time they were with us they did so much.
Girls you are welcome back anytime.
From Monday to Friday the girls kept the kids occupied with many activities, including mask making, weaving bracelets, making board games and not forgetting playing Uno.
Indeed Uno became quite an obsession and continued to be so long after the girls left, leaving the Uno cards behind for the kids.
I hope Mikki and Siva were as happy with their visit as we were. I know that I was personally very tired at the time and only hope that my stresses didn’t effect their visit.
All the children loved having them here and missed them when they were gone.
We all hope your onward travels went well and hope you’ll be back in touch some time.
For many more photos from the girls 5 day visit please visit our photobucket album here.
As reported last week, the basic layout of the bike road around the house is now finished, after much hard work by the children.
It is rideable now but with a very rough shingle surface.
We would like very much to complete the road with either concrete or possibly sand and stonedust mix.
We estimate the full cost of this to be somewhere around 10,000 baht.
Our good friend and webmaster, Ally, has kindly offered 5, 000 baht if we can raise the other 5.
Any help towards this goal would be very much appreciated.
It was long before our new children showed their willingness to pitch in. I was very happy to return home from a shopping trip one day last week to see the new kids helping Wasana in the garden.
It has been good to see that the T.V culture has not reached the point where some paper, crayons, paints or plastercine fails to grab the kids imaginations.
Certainly, with the children we have at the moment, art seems to be very popular. You will find a dedicated album at our photobucket account with examples of the childrens art work.
Very soon we also hope to produce postcards and seasonal greetings cards using the best of their efforts which will be on sale in our online shop. So pop back in a couple of weeks, when we hope to have set up the shop , and maybe you’d like to help us help the children by making a purchase. All profits will go into the Stratton ABC Foundation Fund and help secure ‘a better chance’ in life for the kids at Stratton House now and hopefully many more in the future.
To see more examples of our childrens art work please visit our photobucket album here.
Nov 132009
Recently our team here at Stratton House was boosted by the arrival of Somboons Father, Boonma, who has been a great help during his stay.
Up early every morning he has been hard at work tidying up all the rough edges that remained around the grounds.
He has also started to utilise the remaining soil patches for vegetable growing.
Around the borders of our site you can see many small wickered ‘fences’ like these which mark where he has planted pumpkin and marrows.
On top of all this he has been spending the remainder of his daytime hours constructing collection boxes. When he has finished this first batch we will have 30 collection boxes which we hope to place in and around the local community.
The aim is that eventually the revenue from these boxes may cover the basic running costs of the home.
This will mean that more of your donations can be put towards further improvements to our facilities and services and towards our long term aim to actually purchase the property to ensure a permanent facility.
Behind the house the foundations of a previous building will be used for sporting activities such as badminton and basketball.
We hope to purchase a net this weekend and Boonma is possibly going to make us a basketball hoop very soon.
For more photos please visit our photobucket album here.
We are happy to announce that we have now acquired a Mazda Diesel Pick-up Truck that will be fitted out to carry passengers in the back at the end of this month.
It was too good a deal to miss and the hope is that we can recoup the money by offering advertising on the sides of the vehicle.
The last couple of days has seen more hard work preparing the kitchen/dining area which is coming together nicely.
Boon has been putting his plumbing skills to good use,plumbing in the kitchen sinks.
For my part, as well as yet more barrowing, i have been hard at it with paint brushes and rollers and hope to have the paint work all done by Thursday this week.
Other good news is that Wassana, our lady chef from our Brick Road Cafe days has confirmed that she will take the position of live-in house mother.
For all the latest photos please visit our photobucket album here.
