Reporting on the work of the Thai Children's Trust and our friends and colleagues in Thailand.

Tuesday, 12 February 2008

Pattaya School for the Blind

Yesterday I met a young woman who is serving a life sentence in prison. What makes her case particularly poignant is that her prison is her own body. Baytoy (the spelling may be wrong) is deaf and blind, and so far as her school has been able to establish there are no teachers of the deaf-blind yet in Thailand.

The staff and the wonderful Ajarn (teacher) Aurora communicate with her via lots of hugs and touching, but if she is ever going to lreach her potential - and Baytoy is an intelligent girl - she must have specialist teachers. That may mean going to live abroad.

It is awful to think that this defenceless and vulnerable child may have to be uprooted from home, family and her own culture. The move can never be properly explained to her, and she will be bewildered. I wondered if it was the right thing, and doubted.

But the alternative is the life sentence; an intelligent girl trapped incommunicado for ever, in a state of constant frustration. How dreadful that would be.

This child needs help.

1 comment:

nobody said...

it would be a dreadful shame and short term thinking to send this young lady abroad. It would, I think, not only be better for her to remain where she is to learn, but for a deaf/blind teacher to be sponsored to come over. That way her carers would learn and be able to pass on their knowledge to others that can help other deaf/blind children.
I'd love to see a ripple started.