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Proof In The Pudding

 Foundation Blog, Lead  2 Responses »
Dec 052010
 
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You do your best, hoping that you’re doing the right thing. You battle both the doubt of others and self doubt to. And then you get a day like this.

All I do here is designed to lift the self esteem and confidence of these children; to help them discover and develop both their own characters and any latent skills they may have.

Yesterday I was suffering the after effects of a touch of food poisoning, ( too much dodgy nam pik), which had meant no sleep the night before and I really wasn’t up to much. Being Saturday the children needed occupying as always. With all the recent Mural practice I decided it was time to give them a free hand.

Given brushes and paint and told to get on with it these wonderful children did me proud.

I would like to say a big thanks to all those who have helped to give the children the confidence to do this all on their own, including Li Li Tan and all the guys at Art Relief International.

I would also like to add yet more thanks to my good friend Ally for all her support and helping me thru those moments of self doubt.

All we need now is much more paint. So if you are as impressed as I am with the children’s efforts , and want to help them keep at it, please feel free to drop by with any odds and ends of outdoor emulsion paint you might have lying around:)

2011 Calendars and Handmade Cards Available Now:)

 Foundation Blog, Lead  1 Response »
Nov 242010
 

Just to let you know that you can now purchase either The Stratton ABC Foundation 2011 Calendar, featuring photos of all the children of Stratton House, or our Handmade greetings cards, from our online shop or here at Stratton House should you happen to visit.
We soon hope to have these and other products available in outlets in Chiang Mai.
If you have a shop, guest house, restauarant, etc where you would be happy to sell these products for us then please contact me here through this website.

Dance Class With Sara

 Live Projects  No Responses »
Nov 092010
 

Monday afternoon after school the children of Stratton House had a special treat with the arrival of Sara, an Art Relief International volunteer, from Columbia, who came to hold a workshop on movement and dance.

In fact she came along with many other volunteers who helped with warm up games for the kids.

Sadly I have not much of a visual record of the events as I was in discussion with Kira from Art Relief about future projects, but I can tell you that all the kids loved the session. Everyone joined in in the end, even Tai, who was very reluctant at first, but couldn’t resist it when he saw how much fun it was.

Im hoping that this will be just the first of many such classes.

When all was done I got a stream of  ” Daddy! Sanook mak mak!!”

Thankyou very much Sara, from everyone here at Stratton House.

Home Made Cards in The Making

 Foundation Blog  No Responses »
Nov 092010
 
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Also this weekend the children were treated to a craft workshop from our good friend Somboon. Armed with various types of paper and card, stencils and decorations he held all the childrns attention as he gave the first lesson in how to produce some simple but beautiful homemade greetings cards which we hope to be able to put on sale soon to help raise money to continue our work.

Garden Projects Continue

 Foundation Blog  No Responses »
Nov 092010
 
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This weekend the children at Stratton House got down to more hard work in the garden.

With Wasanaas help the girls set to tidying the area to the left of the house and created a rockery with some beautiful flowers to brighten the place up.

Meanwhile, the boys used bamboo to create our second “allottment” section.

This now holds Jacks Broccoli plants and Tai seeded the rest with Pak Bung.

We would like to create more of these small allottments and if you feel like helping, please visit our online shop where you could assist by “purchasing” soil, seeds or bamboo to enable the extention of this project.

Not Just Fun and Games

 Foundation Blog  No Responses »
Sep 222010
 
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Just a reminder that life is not just fun and games here at Stratton House. All the children have to do their bit to keep things ship shape. And it has to be said that they do, with not too much prompting needed.

Denghi Fever Season, Authorities Act

 Live Projects  No Responses »
Jul 282010
 
yung2 childrens home

This time of year is always a little bit tense for me.

The coming of the rains also bring out all the bugs, including the notorius Aedes (Stegomyia) aegypti mosquito, which bites all day long. This mosquito can be the carrier of Dengue Fever, a flu like disease which kills hundreds every year.

There is no preventative apart from not getting bitten, and once contracted, the only treatment for Dengue fever is rest, fluids, and paracetemol to control fever. if the patient does not fight of the fever themselves the only chance for recovery is a complete blood transfusion as Dengue destroys the blood.

Being an annual danger the authorities do their best to inform people of the dangers, advising that people make sure they do not have standing water nearby, where the mosquitos will breed. They also activate teams to go to peoples homes and spray with mosquito killing gas.

This weekend it was the turn of our village and on Saturday morning our whole Childrens Home compound , including indoors got a good gassing.

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