Hi Selwyn, In case you don't see this I will email you direct also, early this week. I think the best i can reccomend is that you contact the RICD(Royal Institute For Child Development) (http://www.ricd.go.th/) close to Mae Rim. This is an excellent facility with expert Doctors , social workers and all the access and knowledge of the sort of help you ar […]
just seen your last three updates,with all the hard work done by everyone it was good to see there was also time to relax and have fun, thankyou to all who made this possible xxxx […]
Hi John My name is Selwyn Wilson a soon to 66 year old UK pensioner. I have been the only carer of 10 year old Arissa Sompamit from Omkoi since she was struck down with JEV in September 2009. She is brain damaged and has all that accompanies this Disease.I met 2 Thai ladies at the Mc Kean rehab centre where I have taken her for Occupational Therapy until Mar […]
My brother recommended I might like this blog. He used to be totally right. This post actually made my day. You can not consider simply how a lot time I had spent for this info! Thank you! […]
Giving Children A Better Chance in Northern Thailand
"telling someone what they have to learn is a long and tortuous road, often ineffective; giving someone the opportunity to explore what their brain finds particularly interesting at the time opens the gateway to optimization of that individuals potential" anon
Big thanks to my Mum and my sister, Theresa, back in the Uk who have been working hard on Fund Raising ideas and recently operated a stall at a local Church “market” in Worcester City.
Most of what was for sale was handmade by my Mum and Sister, including teddy bears, bracelets, Xmas decorations and much more.
I am officially naming them as our 2nd Gamma team, Yai Gamma (Yai being …Grandmother).
They hope to make this a regular event and are also considering operating at Car Boots sales as well when the weather allows.
Apologies for the quality of the photo, taken on my Mums phone, she promises to use her proper camera next time.
Recent posts have mentioned visits from our friend Oscar who has been putting together a promotional video for the Foundation.
This first finished edition is exactly what we hoped for and we would like to extend our deepest thanks to Oscar for all his effort.
As we start with our plans for a permanent facility in which to develop our Foundations work and services, to hopefully go on to help many more children here in Thailand, we are desperately in need of a major fund raising push and we believe that this video does a great job of introducing what we are all about and why we need your help.
There will be a permanent link to this video appearing on the website imminently.
Very soon this video will also feature Thai language sub-titles.
Woops, I should know better than to put a time limit on these posts, how easily two days can stretch to 10. With a new Volunteer and finalising the land purchase I’ve had no time. But I digress…..
After 3 months hard graft;
(which I neglected to mention also featured some much appreciated help from our good friend Heather, of the Faa Gamma Fund raising team, and her family who were over on a visit and helped us prepare the playground area and first fence)
;getting the house and grounds ready and starting the process of registering The Foundation; the grounds were looking pretty barren but safe and all the furnishings and fitting of fans , etc finished.
We also had two brand new shower/toilets blocks built to ensure adequate facilities.
With a possible 14 residents all needing to get ready for school in the morning this was seen as a must do.
We were then waiting on the registration process which can take a very long time.
Many checks by City Hall, the Police and local authorities.
Determined to do things right we had not planned to open officially or take any children before this process was finished.
At the time I was working as a Volunteer English teaching assistant at a rural Thai school.
When one of their pupils stopped coming to school, one of the Teachers, knowing that we were setting up the Foundation, explained that the boy had been sent back home from his placement in a Lamphun Childrens Home and was no longer receiving regular education, and worse still, was back in what was seen by many as an abusive and neglectful home situation. The Teacher cared very much for the boy and asked if we could help.
The nature of “care” means that as much as you may want to follow protocol, sometimes you simply can not turn your back.
Knowing the boy, knowing his woeful situation and knowing that Stratton House was fit and ready to accommodate we simply could not ignore this call for help.
So, after a home visit and first hand assessment of his situation, and with the request for a placement coming, not only from his teacher but, his wider family also , we took our first child into the care of The Stratton ABC Foundation on Nov 1st 2009.
Within 3 a month the same fate beset two young girls who had been attending the same school, evicted from their previous placement. Once again the Teacher asked us for help.
After home visit, assessment and request from the family we agreed to help.
One of the pledges we make here at The Stratton ABC Foundation is that once a child has been given a placement they become one of the “Family”.
The nature of a Childrens Home means that children who come here may well come with many problems. We are here to care and will do our utmost to do the best we can for each and every child, and ending a placement would only ever happen if we felt that The Stratton ABC Foundation was not able to give the best service that any particular child needed.
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.
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.
Its a long time coming, but here at last is the report on the recent Childrens Day celebrations.
Childrens Day is an annual event in Thailand, held on the second weekend in January, where a lot of effort is put into making a special day for all children.
Personally I prefer it to Xmas as there is no religious pretence, just blatant spoiling of the children for a day.
Indeed many children get more than one day as the schools often hold their own ‘Childrens Day’ on the Friday, as they did at Pasak School, where I teach.
It was not an easy decision as to where to take the children from Stratton House on Childrens Day; so many events, large and small, to choose from.
In the end we elected to follow advice given by a local friend and take them to Airforce 41 Base, close to Chiang Mai Airport, where, we were told , there would be several aircraft on display and lots of interesting stuff going on.
Hindsight is a pretty useless thing as, but in hindsight it was not such a good descision for us.
It certainly was a big affair with thousands of local families attending. Our problem was the numbers and lay-out. From the car parking area there was quite along route to walk to get to where all the aircraft and activities were.
This route was lined with hundreds of stalls selling all manner of clothes, toys, nic-nacs, food, etc; so many distractions for the kids within a narrow walkway packed with hundreds of people.
Within 10 minutes we had lost the two older boys. Although confident that they could look after themselves we still needed to locate them incase an emergency caused us to need to leave. Everyone had been issued with a card with phone number to ring if our group got seperated.
Leaving the other children at The Bouncy Castle with Wasana, our house Mum, myself and Boon went on a search. Nearly 2 hours later after much searching and numerous tannoy calls we bumped into the 2 boys on the way back to the car, blissfully unaware of the stress they had caused.
Lucky it was Childrens Day and they got away with stern instruction not to wander off again. In view of the crowds and difficulty in keeping the group together we then left Airforce 41 and drove into Chiang Mai to Kad Suan Kaow Shopping Mall where there was a special Childrens Day playground set up in the centre ‘garden’.
After lunch in the Food Court in the lower level of the Mall we took the Children to the fun and games in the central garden area.
The two older boys were given the job of acting as extra eyes to keep an eye out for the younger ones as they joined the fun.
Being a much more contained area the crowds were not such a problem and the kids had a great afternoon.
It was late afternoon , early evening when they got their special Childrens Day surprise, made possible by the generous efforts of the Faa Gamma fundraising team in Australia.
The team kindly held a special Xmas appeal to raise money to purchase bicycles for the children to use and enjoy.
We were able to buy four bicycles for the children to share and these were presented to the children on their return to Stratton House.
Apologies for the poor photo quality.
Many thanks to our good friend Heather and all her team; the kids love the bikes and use them everyday as soon as they return from school.
As promised we managed to complete the paint job on the kitchen this morning. This has meant that completion of Heathers fence has been delayed but as we will have children here on November first we had to prioritise. Back to the fence next week;).
All that needs to be done now is the final lay out of tables, etc, and our coulourful dining room is ready.
Seemingly showing his approval , we had a visitor just after finishing. Biggest butterfly, (or is it a moth?), I’ve ever seen.
So please, if you are reading this, now is when we really need your support as we begin the job of giving disadvantaged children in Chiang Mai a better chance in life.
As promised we managed to complete the paint job on the kitchen this morning. This has meant that completion of Heathers fence has been delayed but as we will have children here on November first we had to prioritise. Back to the fence next week;).
