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 […]
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
Up until now all the children have been sleeping on the basic “cardboard” filled matresses.
These are adequate enough for the younger children but our teenagers are now in need of better quality support for their health and welfare.
They are now getting to the point where the present mattresses won’t support their weight which leads to sunken mattresses which I am concerned will then lead to possible back problems.
There are many outlets in Chiang Mai selling basic , good quality mattresses at very reasonable cost.
As the glitz of Xmas wears off its great to see our creative kids still get just as much, if not more, fun from their own hand made creations as any of the shop bought stuff. With lots of creative input over time the children here at Stratton House can often be found with scissors, glue and card, putting together a new Dolls House, Castle, or even moving parts toys.
Its heart warming to see a bunch of kids not yet so over run by modern technology that they can’t see the worth of the simple things made by their own hand.
Or indeed made for them with love of a sibling. Watch Zak as he plays with the “train” made by his older brother Tai, from old milk cartons and bottle tops.
The New Year brings renewed determination to get further prepared for the “permanent facility” for the Foundation. First need is to accurately measure the plot once more, in metres in order to go ahead with deigning and producing proper architectural plans.
Thanks to recently made contacts we now have someone prepared to help us with this.
So this week has seen a couple of trips by myself, up to the land with the strimmer and then again Saturday and Sunday mornings with the children pitching in with the job.
I am hoping to get the complete clearance done in the next couple of days so that those all important measurements can be made.
Sadly, although we have had a couple of ex-volunteers doing what they can we still only have 2 official Gamma Teams; our first Faa gamma, headed by good friend Heather Mackay in Queensland , Australia; and Yai Gamma which is basically my Mum and my sister. Both these teams are doing their best to hold varying fund raisers most months and I would like to take the opportunity to thank all those involved for all their hard work and support.
Our present basic monthly running costs are around 1000 pounds sterling. Thanks to great efforts by both Gamma teams over the Xmas period and regular contributions from an American couple, we received a little over that for Januarys budget. This is the first time we have actually covered our budget totally with donations.
On average we are receiving just half of what we need with the remainder being made up by myself.
To sustain our work and to hopefully move forward this is not a tenable situation.
If you are looking in and have time , energy and ideas and would like to help a very worthwhile cause please consider joining our Fund Raising Family. Your “team” can be just one person or a group of friends. If you keep a record of your Fund raising activities and take some photos to we will give you space on our website where your efforts will be credited.
From jumble sales to home made fashion show, movie clubs to coffee mornings…..as the old adage goes,” every little helps” and with enough small fund raising teams around the world our target is not a huge mountain to climb.
If you are local to or visiting Chiang Mai and want to confirm what you see on our website via a personal visit please do get in touch.
We are dedicated to quality “family style” care with extensive efforts towards true development of each and every child’s potential, employing art, music, dance, character building work projects and are now moving forward with even more practical skills development, including basic electronics.
Please help us sustain our work, which is starting to show marked results. And not just to sustain but to develop and offer ”A Better Chance” to many more children in the future.
Due to Annas need to bring forward travel plans for Australia, having secured herself a job, this was Anna and Toms last day with children.
And another full day it was.
Certainly the morning was busy with the usual work time slot, with more work being done to our “workshop”.
As there wasn’t really enough jobs to go round on this project, Anna took some of the girls to begin a new Mural on the rear wall of the outdoor shower block.
After work hour Tom got into more Patong and Anna helped Bpaa Zang and the girls in the kitchen.
Top star lunch. Nam pik phlaa with sweet and sour chicken and cabbage and eggplant on the side. Genuine Thai cuisine as tasty as any you’d get in the city restaurants.
In the after noon things were a little more chilled with the kids keeping themselves occupied with Patong and their bicycles and the adults taking some time to let our food go done and grab an afternoon nap.
Active Anna succumbed, finally, to the heat and took some well earned nap time in the garden.
We all said a big thanks to our visitors over dinner and wish them all the best for their new life in Australia. Hopefully “see you again” rather than goodbye?
As some of you will already know we unfortunately lost House Mother Muay, on Boxing Day, after she decided to leave the job to spend more time with her own family. The stresses and strains of helping to care for 10 children can take their toll and we wish Muay all the best for the future. Whilst here she did a great job.
This has meant an extra workload for myself whilst waiting for new staff.
Thankfully, after a couple of non-starters I am pleased to introduce our new House Mother, Zangboon. Now known as Bpaa Zang. She has pitched into the job straight away since starting on Tuesday and all the signs are that we have yet another great member of staff. Floors are sparkling, children are getting lots of hugs and our stomachs are being treated to excellent quality Thai cuisine. Zang apparently had her own business in the past cooking Thai food to sell at local factories at lunch time.
Our top student, tai, was busy at his homework as usual last night, using one of our old collection boxes as a makeshift fish tank for his latest school project. This meant filling the coin slot and also using silicone to fix a leak at one of the corners.
We had paid a visit to the fish shop on the way back from school to by 2 different sort of gravel.
This morning he was busy arranging the 2 tone gravel, and adding plant decoration and of course a few of our guppies.
I’m not sure what the project was and today Tai, May 2 and bong all went off to The Royal Flora for the day, with the school. Gu’s class had gone on their trip last week and today was a test day.
Unfortunately we had not got a spare camera available today so no photos of the royal flora I’m afraid.
On picking the kids up I inquired after the fish and Tai told me that his teacher had not “marked” the homework yet. Concerned for the fishes welfare over the weekend, I insisted that he brought them home and took them back Monday if needed.
Its been pretty non-stop here this week, its been so good to have the help of Anna and Tom.
With the kids back to school on Tuesday it was a chance for our two volunteers to take it easy in the day time but they wouldn’t hear of it. In the morning they accompanied me up to our land.
Now that we have had sustained dry weather it is an opportunity to get some work done, not only planning for the new build but also to utilise the land whilst we raise funds.
The first thing that needs doing is to strim the overgrowth, which is quite substantial.
As Tom and Anna can testify, even though the rains have gone we are now up against the sun and so it is a case of slowly slowly, doing an hour or so before the heat of the day makes it difficult.
We are keen to get proper plans drawn up for the proposed permanent facility so it is important that we get new measurements in metres to facilitate this. To do that we need to find the borders and land markers, now hidden by the last 3 months growth of weeds.
With Anna and Toms help we cleared the path down to the land and found the first marker on Tuesday.
In the afternoon our to busy volunteers then helped cut posts for our new Re-Cycle storage, and when the heat got too much, set to peeling and chopping sweet potatoes for storage in the freezer.
They were then on hand to greet the kids from school and spend time playing before dinner.
On Wednesday they did take a well earned day off, as Anna had a phone interview for a new job in Australia. All that good Karma they’ve been building up obviously did the trick, with the news that she was successful in her interview.
Slightly sad for us as it means they will be leaving earlier than planned. But we are happy that Anna has secured herself employment for the couples new start in Australia. And they are still with us until Monday so we will all have to make the most of that time.
Today it turned out that the Primary School children had a day off. This changed our plans a little but it was another productive day.
In the morning Anna took care of the girls, whilst Zak accompanied Tom and myself to the land where we did more strimming, with Zak busy with the rake.
We were successful in our target for the morning, clearing down to, and finding, the furthermost land marker.
After a delicious lunch, made by our new House Mother; Zangboon; Tom and Anna came with me on a Re- cycle run, picking up re-cyclables from The American Pacific School Kindergarten, Kwan Wiang Moobahn and our local Garden shop in Sarapee. It was a massive haul from the garden shop, whose friendly lady proprietor has been saving stuff for a monthly collection for the last couple of months now. She stocks a wide range of garden plants, from the simple to the exotic, as well as high quality garden soil and other accessories. She also speaks a reasonable amount of English.
Back home everyone joined in sorting all the re-cyc;ables ; paper, glass, metal and plastic; and bagging it for storage in the new tidy pens I put up on Wednesday(photos coming soon).
Then it was back to chill out and playtime for everyone before dinner.
Once again a full day here with smiles lighting the place up and the sounds of laughter filling the day.
Anna and Tom arrived around 8.30am and after grabbing some breakfast it was time for the mornings work, continuing with the prep for the new shelving in the “workshop”.
Yet again Tai excelled at organising the team and by the end of the hours session the majority of the bamboo needed was cut and prepped to slot together in true DIY furniture kit style.
With the kids back to school tomorrow I asked Tai to draw out how he planned the shelves to be so that Anna, Tom and myself can put it all together whilst the kids are at school. Not surprisingly I was handed a very clear drawing later in the day detailing position and lay out for the shelves. Look out Ikea!!
After the work it was chill out time with a variety of activities going.
After lunch, prepared once again by Anna and the girls, our two volunteers accompanied me and the boys on a run into Sarapee for a few things we were in need of and for the boys to have their school haircuts.
Back at the house it was more fun and games with jigsaw making, Patong, bike riding and other games going on. Everywhere I looked was a beaming smile and the sounds of happy laughter rang out all day long.
Even the car washing session was full of laughter.
Look out for May2 on keyboard, under helpful instruction from Anna.
