When Hayley heard about the needs of the children on the border of Thailand and Burma, she instantly wanted to help. She had overheard me talking about the orphanage that Help Save The Kids was partnering to build, and how more funds were required, and wanted to assist in raising money.
Over the span of three months, Hayley sold thousands of fundraising chocolates, held raffles and sought product and cash donations from numerous companies for the orphanage. But that wasn’t all. Hayley went out of her way, and with the help of her family and friends she organised and ran a music quiz night in Perth, Western Australia in which over 70 people attended and raised over $1,500 on the night alone.When I spoke to Hayley about why she went to such great lengths to raise money for the children’s orphanage she replied
being a mother of two young girls, it really hit me knowing that there are so many children who have lost their parents due to the war and disease and are being forced to work to survive. These kids aren’t able to go to school and just be kids, so once I heard that I could help them have a more normal childhood through the orphanage, I instantly went about raising money. I couldn’t have done it without the help of everyone.
From Help Save The Kids, the team in Mae Sot, Thailand who are overseeing the construction, and the children who will now have somewhere to call home, we would like to thank Hayley for her dedication and generosity to helping us fund this worthy project.
This year is the 10th Anniversary of ‘The World Day Against Child Labour’, a day which aims to address and take action to prevent child labour in high risk regions. In a ceremony held in Mae Sot, a district in Tak on the Thai-Burmese border, the Thai Deputy Education Minister Chaiwut Bannawat announced that the government will introduce a new policy which will allow all children equal education opportunities, including those considered Internally Displaced Persons.
The Deputy Minister stated that in Tak province alone, there are 20,000 children who have never been offered education, as opposed to the 23,816 who are receiving an educaiton in various public schools and training centres. What a statistic.
Last year in October, I had the opportunity to personally travel to Mae Sot in Tak and visited a school which Help Save The Kids partners. I painted classrooms, played games with the children and assisted with training teachers for the next school year. This school which was an open air building was divided into three classrooms, all which were over capacity, but the children were so happy to be able to attend.
I was only at the school for a few days but wanted to do so much more to help. The school receives support from a few small groups including Help Save The Kids however it isn’t enough to cover food, stationary and learning aids for the kids. Nor is it enough to pay give the teachers a small salary, but because of their dedication many of them go without in order to help their community.
The importance of primary health is becoming more apparent every time I hear about the situation in Thailand. A friend in the border town of Mae Sot was telling me about a boy living in a close by orphanage who has HIV but due to the lack of knowledge of the HIV virus at the clinic, the people who take care of this young man have no idea what to do apart from wait for nature to take it’s course. My friend working with these people was able to pass on some facts about the virus and was able to tell the carers that it is possible that this boy could have a long and healthy life. This sort of situation is not uncommon as even the clinic staff have not received medical training.
This year, health care will be one of the primary focuses of Help Save The Kids. Teams from Singapore are scheduled to travel to Thailand to provide education to clinic staff, school teachers and other people within the community about basic health care, nutrition and hygiene. Our aim is to train these people so that they will be able to go out and assist and train others.
