Land clearing?; knocking an old out-house down?; got nowhere to get rid of that unsightly pile of broken blocks and bricks?
No, not looking for trouble….looking for rubble.
This weekends work hours include clearing the rubble from our previous de-stoning around Stratton House grounds. Today The girls all helped out putting previously gathered stones and broken bricks onto the truck. Meanwhile the boys loaded the piles that had been made behind the house, onto our blue trolley and brought them round for loading on the truck also.
A little later in the day three of the boys came with me up to where our land is, to unload the stones and start a track down to the land.
With all the wet weather the way down is already overgrown and very wet. First job was for Tai to clear some of the track with the strimmer.
As you can see in the photos, we have a long way to go, as our land sits at the end of the white wall.
The amount of rubble we have here will barely scratch the surface of the required track.
So we would like to ask anyone local to us in Chiang Mai, if you have any rubble you need rid of. If you do why not contact us and we will come and take it away for you. You loose the ugly pile , we get a bit more track,…deal done.
You will now be able to leave any food donations for our 100 baht Shop Appeal at,
Nok ‘Em Ded, Jewellery and Design Shop, in Prapaklao Rd, close to Wat Chedi Luang in the Old City.
Please ensure that any donations you leave at Nok ‘Em Ded are non-fresh items such as tinned foods or sealed bags.
If donating rice please ensure it is in sealed bags, and brown rice if possible;
we converted totally to brown rice last year to increase the dietary value for the children’s health.
If you wish to donate fresh items such as fruit or meat please deliver only to Stratton House;
or if donating larger quantity please contact us about collection. Thank you very much.
As mentioned previously, inflation on food in Thailand has recently gone crazy with many foodstuffs nearly doubling in price. Ensuring that our children eat a healthy diet is very important to us here at Stratton House; consequently our food bill is one our biggest expenses.
We would like to call, firstly, on any interested parties in our local area of Chiang Mai;
when you are doing your regular food shop please consider sparing 100 baht towards something for our children here, maybe brown rice, vegetable oil, tinned fish, or fresh meat we can freeze, ( if you are able to either keep it or deliver quickly).
If anyone would like to offer to facilitate such a collection point, please get in touch.
Also to all those further afield; please consider making a donation towards this appeal. Even a small donation of just 1 pound or a couple of dollars will help greatly.
Please help us keep our children healthy and fit:)
We’d like to take this opportunity to say a big thanks to Adam and Sirikul Sandaver for their recent donation, far more than our Appeal request, of rice and biscuits. Very much appreciated:)
The Volunteers from Art Relief International have been working hard this week to bring the work on the Children’s Playground to a finish, and at last today saw the job done.
This morning the children did their bit before the volunteers arrived all pitching in to scrub the walls down ready for painting in the near future.
They have also been lending the occasional hand with the volunteers, especially Jack, who spent a long period helping to shovel sand. A thick bed of sand is being spread throughout the play area to provide safety.
Big thanks to all once again.
One last thing we need is to fence this area in to prevent the resident dogs from using it as a toilet. Unfortunately the playground budget ran out and we would like to make an appeal now for help to cover the costs of this part of the project.
A rough estimate at the costs is around 5000 baht.
If you can help please donate using the button on the upper left hand side of the page or by direct bank transfer using the details on our ‘Donate’ page. Alternatively why not pop in and donate in person if you are in the area.
For all the photos from today please visit our photobucket album here.
Our friends in Australia have done us proud again with a Xmas appeal that raised well over 300 Australian dollars.
We would all like to say thankyou very much to all the members of the Faa Gamma Team for your continued efforts and support;
and thanks also to anyone who contributed to this appeal.
Firstly I would like to say how happy I’ve been with recent rapid responses to our appeals for items to fulfil the small dreams of some of our children.
These gestures have been a real boost to the children for their efforts and real proof that there are people who care.
Now we need to make a far more urgent appeal.
If you have heard of our work, visited our website or maybe even visited our Children’s Home project and are at all impressed with what we are doing, we desperately need funds coming in to ensure that we can carry on into the future and fulfil the promise of “A Better Chance”, to the children here at Stratton House now and many more in the future.
With big efforts here to bring in better efficiency in all areas of our operations, our basic running costs have now been reduced to 30,000 baht a month.
Clearly, to improve, develop and increase our services to help more children we will need more, but our main priority now is to ensure that the first target of basic monthly running costs is covered.
Ways you can help
If you have paypal please consider using our Donate button right now.
Take a look in our online shop; here you will find gift items produced here at Stratton House; sponsor a child options; and in our Wishlist section options for sponsoring specific needs, such as a weeks food or a weeks drinking water.
If you live in Chiang Mai keep a look out for our collection boxes, now in several locations around the city.
You can find Handmade cards produced by the children in Nok ‘Em Ded store in Prapaklao Rd, close to Wat Chedi Luang.
Recycle Initiative
Also now we would like to start a recycle iniative where your rubbish can help us. If you would like to recycle more but struggle to find a way to get rid of your unwanted plastic/glass/card or paper please get in touch.
We already recycle most of our waste and if you give us details of where you are then we will collect; all monies from the recycle centers will go directly into The Stratton ABC Foundation general Household budget. (please note that this option is open only to those living within Chiang Mai City area or between the City and Sarapee areas…..if you are not sure get in touch anyway and we will let you know if we can offer the service).
If you have any spare time and have any ideas for fund raising please get in touch.
Please help The Stratton ABC Foundation continue to build on its good start and go on to help many more disadvantaged Thai children have, not only A Better Chance, but quality of life as well.
Thanks to an anonymous donation to our cycle track fund we decided to purchase the first load of surfacing materials.
A second look at the possible costs of concreting, and the fact that we are still in rented accomadation, led us to believe that we should look at cheaper, less permanent, options, and we settled on gravel and stonedust.
Having used this before with a similar project back in the UK, I know that if done properly it should set hard enough to give a reasonable riding surface.
The first load was delivered early Saturday morning and the children were keen to get to work, despite the heat.
We made it a short hour long session to start, with another hour and a half later in the afternoon, when the heat of the day had subsided.
All the children worked very hard. And on Sunday, on returning from the weekly day out, they all pleaded with me to allow them to carry on and do some more.
Personally I was too tired to do much myself, but was cetainly not going to deter such enthusiasm and was happy to supervise.
Well done kids, very proud of you!
For more photos please visit our photobucket album here.
Bike Road Surface Appeal-Allys Offer
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.
Our very first placement, Jack, is at heart, a very special boy, who likes nothing better than making others laugh and be happy.
Unfortunately Jack has many problems, that have become more and more apparent as time has passed since he arrived.
Having known Jack previously, whilst helping out at his previous placement, I had been a little baffled by the ending of his placement.
The possible reasons are now very clear, but rather than return him to an atmosphere of neglect and abuse we fully intend to help Jack conquer his problems.
There is a strong possibility that he suffers fetal alcohol syndrome and we are also investigating the possibility of ADHD as his behaviours strongly resemble those in the diagnosis criteria for this disorder.
Although there is treatment available for ADHD we feel that to move Jack forward to best effect will involve 1-1 staff for a significant part of the day, for quite some time.
As a new Foundation still in the throws of registration and with no major sponsors as yet, this will not be possible without sponsorship.
We estimate the cost of 1 extra staff (to be trained onsite); to work half day 1-1 with Jack and the other half as extra staff for all the children,(8 hours a day), 22 days a month, at 10,000 baht a month(approx.200 pounds sterling).
Despite his difficulties , Jack is well settled and very much loved here at Stratton House and part of our aims is to be able to offer such support for any child where needed.
If you feel able to help in anyway, either as an individual sponsor for the staff or to maybe hold a fundraiser for this special purpose, please contact us as soon as possible.
