Saturday: Ban Tharn Namchai

It has become a tradition that each time we visit Ban Tharn Namchai we bring joy to the local ice-cream man by buying ice cream for all the children.  Since I expect that lots of other people do precisely the same thing, no doubt the ice-cream man is heading swiftly for a well-endowed and early retirement.  Most important, though, the children seem never to lose their enthusiasm for ice-cream, so we bring joy to them, too, which makes us happy so it is that rarest of all outcomes, a win-win-win!

Ban Tharn Namchai is such a happy place that it is a jolt to be reminded of its dark origins in the aftermath of the Tsunami.  I have to ask Khun Rotjana some questions for a forthcoming film about the Orphanage, available soon.  A large group of teenage girls is seen praying with a monk. The questions to be answered are why they are praying and how long it lasts.  The answer, gently given, brings me up with a jolt.  Buddhists believe, says Khun Rotjana, that when a person dies, their spirit continues.  By praying regularly with a monk, the living can bring comfort to the spirits of the dead.  Most of the children in Ban Tharn Namchai lost one or both parents, or another close relative, in the Tsunami or later, as a result of it.  For ten days each year the children pray regularly with the monk for the spirits of their departed relatives.  It is part of coming to terms with the tragedy that engulfed this beautiful place just six years ago. This process is still ongoing, especially in the hearts of these bereaved children.

Later this year packs of six Christmas Cards handmade by the children of Ban Tharn Namchai will be available on the Thai Children's Trust web shop.  Work has already started as you can see above.  This is really popular with the children, because every card earns 5 baht for the child who makes it, so plan your order now!

Travels with a Wheelchair

As some of you will know, my wife Sally, who almost always accompanies me on these visits to Thailand, is a wheelchair user. I thought, since we have been here with the wheelchair a few times now, that a few comments on travelling with a wheelchair might help other users to decide that yes, they can come to Thailand and enjoy a visit.

Thai law makes provision for accessibility, and over the past ten years huge strides forward have been taken in providing adaptations for particularly wheelchair users.  But given that the country was starting from a very low level of provision, the job is not yet complete.

Taking things in order.  Airlines.  We have always flown EVA from UK for the very good reason that they offer TCT supporters special terms.  Their provision for wheelchair users has been first-class throughout.  They will provide a pusher at Heathrow and at Suvarnabhumi, allowing us to take our own wheelchair right to the door of the aircraft and then presenting it at the door on arrival.  At the door, the stewardesses descend on Sally in numbers, helping to support her to her seat, making her comfortable and rendering me cheerfully redundant.  EVA score top marks on the international leg, as do Thai Airways on domestic flights.  Thai make full use of airbridges to and from the aircraft, and on the one occasion when an airbridge was not available a special vehicle with a lifting body and a tail lift - the sort of thing normally used for loading the food trolleys - was provided so that exiting the plane was easy.  Nok Air are slightly less distinguished: leaving Bangkok for Nong Khai was fine since they used the airbridge at Don Muang.  But on arrival at Udon Thani for some reason they disdained the airbridge and made us disembark by steps.  Not Sally's favourite, although we made it without mishap.  If you really can't do steps, either warn Nok first - or travel Thai!

Getting around inside Thailand involves getting in and out of a lot of minbuses.  There is really no way of avoiding this, since the train service is sketchy.  Sally has developed her own unique way of climbing into a minibus, which involves putting her wheelchair cushion on the top step, kneeling onto it, shuffling on her knees between the front seat and the bulkhead, then twisting upward onto the seat.  It sounds awkward, but it works.  But if you can't get into a minibus you may have some travel restrictions, unless you can use rental cars or taxis.  Bangkok Taxis are OK, and the drivers (so far) very helpful, but they have one restriction, which is that many are powered by LPG and therefore have limited luggage space.  We have an aluminium Wheeltech chair (ebay, £50) which dismantles very readily.  The handles fold down, the footboards and supports come off and the wheels pop off in an instant.  If you take the brake off first.  Dismantled it will fit in the boot of a Bangkok taxi, although the drivers are often bemused.  It is also very light so that even when fully assembled it is easy to lift in and out of vans, taxis etc..  There is one snageroo, which is that the retaining nuts on the folding handles are prone to shake out, and did so last year on the flight from Udon Thani to Bangkok.  A wheelchair with one handle severely affected by droop is a useless wheelchair, so tighten all the nuts before consigning to the hold! Outside Bangkok, service areas and airports increasingly provide properly adapted disabled loos with handrails and emergency buzzers.  Doorlocks can be unreliable, so post a minder outside to avoid unwelcome interruptions.

Away from the cities and the motorways, Thailand has a great many 'Turkish' loos, the squatting kind.  These are not easy for people with balance problems, or, as someone pointed out at Mae Tao Clinic, for people with replacement hip joints.  All hotels have a common affection for modern 'low-rise' loos.  These are almost as impossible as 'Turkish' loos for people with weak legs.  For someone travelling alone a device which sits onto the loo seat and adds four inches or so might take up some luggage space, but would be worth the trouble.  Some might even find it worth brining a folding commode to place over the loo on the grounds that it would provide both a raised seat and handrails in one easy package.  We make do with a sort of rolling lift from me that rocks Sally up to her feet, a technique honed to perfection by years of practise.  I like to think.

Hotels.  Every hotel we have stayed in has gone out of its way to be helpful and welcoming.  The Redemptorist Centre in Pattaya - where all the rooms in the new block are disabled friendly - is the only one to offer grab rails everywhere in the bathroom, and especially beside the loo.  There is a lift to all floors.  This is not always the case in small hotels, so it is worth making sure before you arrive that the hotel know that you have special needs and that a ground floor room is available if there is no lift.  A ground floor room is, of itself, no guarantee of accessibility: we have had to avoid staying at one well-known guest house in Mae Sot because the ground floor doors are protected by two foot high concrete barriers: I assume that this is flood protection, but it also deters the disabled.  Instead we stay at Phannu House, where there are wheelchair ramps and ground floor rooms.  Because Phannu has no eating facilities (Casa Mia is but a few minutes walk) we have thought of getting reflectors or lights for the chair for nighttime returns from supper, but we haven't done anything about it.  Cyclists and motorcyclists seem to go freely without lights, so why not a wheelchair?

In Bangkok we stay at the President Park.  It has lifts to all floors, but no specially adapted rooms.  The ramps into the hotel are very steep and quite slippery, I have to use shoes not sandles when pushing the chair.  The staff, however, are brilliant and will cheerfully help push up or brake on the downward leg.  A caution - here and all around Soi 26 there are steep ramps: so steep that a footboard set too low will catch and can catapult the wheelchair user out of the chair and onto the pavement.  Consider raising the footboards, or make sure your 'pusher' has a quick right foot to raise the front of the wheelchair as you attack the ramp.

A prize must go to the hotel we are in today, the Andamania in Khao Lak.  They had built a ramp  specially so that we can push easily into our bedroom, which is ground floor.  The Manager came to ask whether there was anything they could do to make us more comfortable, and we pointed out that the sunken bathroom was a bit of a problem.  Within 4 hours a second ramp had been installed, all handmade by the hotel handyman.

And that is the nub of the tale.  Thailand is not perfect in its provision for disabled access, but there is a huge willingness - eagerness - to help, which simply overcomes any obstacles.  Thailand is not called 'the land of smiles' for nothing.  So if you are a wheelchair user, and you are considering a holiday here - go for it.  You'll have fun.

Friday 11-Monday 14 - Sarnelli.

How to describe Sarnelli?  We have been coming here now for maybe six years, and it is just like coming home. There is a warmth here that is special.  This is partly Fr Mike Shea, who is nothing if not an excellent host and raconteur; partly it is his wonderful team of people who are happy and confident.  Partly it is the magic of the children who are boisterous, noisy and fun. They have the security of knowing that each one is loved and valued.  There is a sense in which Sarnelli is a series of homes for children who share one common factor - each one has been affected by the HIV virus in one way or another.  In another way it is just one huge happy family.

One of the remarkable things about Sarnelli is that Fr Mike, who was brought up in  a farming family, is still a son of the soil.  He and his team are farming more than 25 acres of land, which yields in  good year about 160 sacks of rice.  In a poor year like 2010, when planting was delayed two months by the non-arrival of the rains, they still won 120 bags,.  This represents a saving of more than 100,000 baht on the food bill, besides helping teach the children to plant, weed and harvest.  A German Lutheran church had given Fr Mike a brand new tractor, which was sitting outside St Patrick's house all shiny and new, as yet unused.  Anywhere else it would be an indulgence, but here with Fr Mike it will earn its keep.

Exciting plans to increase the scale of the farming here will be announced later in the year.  It is possible that eventually this project will be self-sufficient in rice, and that producing it will provide jobs for one or two of the children who have been too badly affected by the HIV virus ever to go out into full-time employment.

When we were here three years ago we met 'Boy'.  He had just arrived, he had AIDS, he was stick thin and very poorly with a disconcerting habit of throwing up without notice, something which has to be treated with considerable respect when the thrower-up is HIV+  He was not a happy little boy, and I think there were a few doubts as to his ability to get well again.  Well, here he is today (Boy is the one on the left, on the right is TCT Chair Crispian Collins, less hat and sunglasses) bursting with health, naughty, cheeky full of fun.  Boy, that is, not Crispian!  Boy will never be free of the HIV virus, but he is a shining example of how children with HIV can thrive and life completely normal lives when properly cared for by skilful people like the Sarnelli team.

It being Thailand, there was a party, on 13th February, for Valentine's Day.  Of course the children would be at school on 14th.  There was dancing and a special lunch.  The home made ice cream was nectar.  Sorry you missed it!  But later there will be film of the dancing on YouTube when we have had time to clean up the video.

Wednesday: Hsa Thoo Lei

Wednesday morning was a treat.  We spent with our good friends at Hsa Thoo Lei, who put on a wonderful display of dancing, and especially of the Karen dancing which is so elegant, so vigorous and so vital a part of the Karen  national identity.  Steve Gomersall's 'Brighter Futures' students made a fluent presentation in English of their work and the work of Brighter Futures.  Steve stood by, quietly glowing with pride at their success, as well he might because they were terrific.  It is young people like the amazing Karen dancers and the accomplished 'Brighter Futures' graduates who make the case for everything Thai Children's Trust is trying to do on the Thai Burma border.  These are hard-working, high-achieving young people who deserve their education and try to make the best possible use of it.

The border is a place for campaigns.  The theme of the Ts and jackets at Hsa Thoo Lei was child trafficking, something which these kids know more about than they ever should.

After this, a meeting with BMWEC.  Normally I report visits not meetings, but I want to make an exception in this case.  BMWEC is the Burmese Migrant Workers Education Committee.  It is a federal organisation of migrant schools with, at present, 39 members plus seven boarding houses.  The managing committee is elected by the member schools.  As organisations go it may not be perfect, but it is nonetheless broadly functional and democratic.  BMWEC is striving with the support of some donors to find a way to enable funds to be more evenly and fairly distributed among the migrant schools.  This is not an easy task.  There are different ways of achieving the goal.  Some of these are more attractive to the schools, others are more attractive to donors.  There is a long way to go before the BMWEC members, who are facing the daily realities of inadequate income, truly understand the position of the donors and (very importantly) vice-versa.  But when you have seen, as I have, schools attempting to operate on 15% of their required budget, and met teachers who have not been paid for four months or more, you cannot dispute the urgent need for progress.

A functioning BMWEC could help signpost donors to schools where the need is greatest.  A functioning BMWEC could provide reliable facts and figures to give authoritative support to applications for extra funding.  A functioning BMWEC could help thousands of children get the education they deserve.  There are lots of reasons why this is difficult, but none of them stacks up against the potential benefits.  It is absolutely vital that donors and BMWEC work together to find the way forward.

There will be an open meeting between donors and BMWEC in March.  This is an important initiative by BMWEC.  Let's hope it produces the results we all hope for.

Tuesday Agape, Burma Children's Medical Fund, STDC, Sky Blue

First stop of the day is Agape school.  Agape's headmaster is the extraordinary David, a convinced Christian who gave up his good job in Bangkok to look after children on the border.  Now he has nearly 200, of whom he and his wife have adopted 20 to help them stay in Thailand.  David believes that his children need to start every day by singing together for half an hour or so.  They come from very challenging backgrounds - the smuggling community on the riverbed, intensive farming and sweatshops.  Especially now, with the influx of new migrants thanks to the fighting on the Burma side, migrant communities and families are under pressure.  The singing helps the children settle back into their day job, which is being children, learning through instructuion and learning through play.  They have already learned a lot through experience.  The singing time is joyful.

I can't believe that I managed to leave the Burma Children's Medical Fund without pictures of the organsisers of this tiny but remarkable humanitarian initiative.  Kanchana and Kate really are the business.  Children who arrive at Mae Tao Clinic, and who are  assessed as needing surgery which is beyond the scope either of the clinic or of Mae Tao Hospital, are referred to BCMF who arrange their transfer to Chiang Mai hospital, and pay for their treatment.  Typical cases include children with heart problems which have gone undiagnosed and untreated in Burma, occasional gunshot or mine injuries, tumours.  Each case has to be carefully documented. Every Thursday a truck leaves Mae Sot with around 9 patients aboard - plus carers who will live in the 'safe house' in Chiang Mai for as long as their child is in hospital, which may be anything from a few days to a few months.  Everyone on the bus is in Thailand with 'migrant worker' status, and Chiang Mai is outside the border zone.  So the Army and the Police are notified of each one, who they are, why they are on the bus, when they may be expected to return to Mae Sot.  With the generous co-operation of the Thai authorities, the truck will travel unhindered to Chiang Mai, treatment will be given, the patient will return.  This lifesaving operation is managed by just two people, Kanchana and Kate, who work very long hours for no pay to make sick children's lives a little easier.  The paperwork is meticulous - it has to be.  The care for the children is paramount - that's why they do it!  But money is very short, especially for paying some quite notable hospital bills.  Please help!

On to STTC which we saw last year.  It was something of a flagship of agricultural projects, and I had high hopes that STTC, which is a post Grade -10 programme, would be able to provide support and experienced help to schools wanting to raise fish, chickens and mushrooms.  This isn't going to happen the way we hoped. The chickens and the fishtanks have gone.  They were on someone else's land, and he wanted it back.  Ho, hum.  The mushroom shed is empty. There are only 20 students in the school, so there was a saleable surplus of mushrooms.  Money from the surplus was not used to restock the shed, which it should have been.  There is no explanation for this immediately available.  The school is, however, pursuing a different path with some success, cutting and welding steel bars to form sturdy school furniture.  This has commercial and educational possibilities.  It is hard not to be a bit crabby about the way the mushroom shed has been set aside, and it is not a topic which will be allowed to drop.  But the success of the small scale manufacturing operation should attract praise.  It works.

Sky Blue School is built beside a huge rubbish dump outside Mae Sot.  It is hugely better than the old site, which was dominated by a vast mountain of rubbish which threatened to engulf it at any moment, and eventually did.  The new school is safe, for the moment, from encroachment.  But it is not a healthy place for a school.   

That said, the staff seem happy and motivated, the children are confident, outgoing and - if their English is a reliable indicator - learning well.  Above you can see their mushroom shed, which was a TCT project.  The mushrooms have been very successful here, and lunches supported by 'Big Give'donors will start next week.  Thanks again, 'Big Give' supporters - you would be proud of what your money is achieving.

Monday: New Blood, Compasio, Starflower, Pyi Chit, Hsa Mu Htaw

The Head Teacher of new Blood School

New Blood School is indisputably poor.  It receives 15000 baht (£300) per month from the Catholic Church, nothing from anywhere else.  The teachers are not paid often, there is no money for food for children.  Yet the spirit of the school is astonishing.  The children are bright, responsive, and very obviously well-taught.  The staff are confident, competent and dedicated.  We overstayed our welcome by an hour, so warm was the welcome and so interesting the conversation. No complaints, no moaning, just intelligent questions and a simple acceptance that this is who we are, this is who you are: there is a divide which cannot be bridged. Of course that is not a view which we can share, we believe that divide can and must be bridged.  Every child is precious, each one deserves the opportunity to make the most of their life. This school does not just need help, it deserves it.  These children deserve an equal chance, and their dedicated teachers need to know the children have that equal chance.  That is all they ask.

I love Starflower Day Nursery, and I think we all do.  It is the only facility for migrant children with special needs along the whole Thai-Burma border, and helps 25 children with physical and/or learning difficulties.  The closing sing-song is a joyful, funny and moving experience.  The children are transformed by singing and dancing with the effervescent Khun Usina and the very talented guitarist.  This tiny project offers fun, friends, love and a moment of precious normality to children whose lives are beset by difficulties.

OK, a born teacher.  About 3' 6" tall, he rapped out the formula responses, rapped the board with his stick, and expected an immediate, accurate and certain response.  A huge character, like so many at Pyi Chit School.  The school, on the edge of Mae Sot, is small but essential to its community.  This year it will have help with lunches for its pupils and rent for its premises thanks to the generosity of donors to our Big Give appeal.

In the early evening we had the huge privilege to be entertained as guests of Hsa Mu Htaw school.  And when I say the school, I mean all of it, teachers and pupils.  This is a tiny but beguiling school whose head teacher, Saw Htet Htet Aung, is a woman of huge ability and charm.  Only her dedication to her children surpasses her charm.  Our invitation to dinner included a performance by the children.  There may be some film of this later, so I will confine my photos to one very apposite T-shirt above and one magically pretty photo below*

It is hard to believe that these are undernourished children from a migrant school, but that is the case.  The performance was stunning.  The children have no TV, so they practice every day.

Again, our Big Give donors have done the business for this school and their lunches start next week.

I cannot thank our supporters enough.  These children are wonderful, and the schools staff are beyond praise.  I am told that when Daw Htet Htet Aung heard that the lunch money was available, she did a little dance of joy.

Thai Children's Trust is so privileged to have the chance to work with children and teachers like those at Hsa Mu Htaw.

* You may not think the photo was beautiful, if so apologies that it does not do justice to the children and the costumes, which definitely were.

Sunday - Border Market, Thoo Mwe Khee, Hsa Thoo Lei Farm

I didn't take any photos on the actual border where Thailand stares into Myawaddy.  It would be easy and dramatic to claim that it was because it would have been dangerous, etc., but in fact I could easily have taken all the photos I wanted, I just didn't see anything I hadn't shot before.  So the picture above is of Thoo Mwe Khee post-ten project which we visited later in the day.

But before we get there, a few words about the border.  It is closed, of course.  So there are no lorries or minibuses belting back and forth.  This is costing Thailand dear.  Explanations are available.  One is that the Burmese government is somehow upset by changes to the embankments on the Thai side of the river.  Well, maybe.  Another is that the bridge has a crack in the middle so large that neither side dares let lorries cross until remedial work has been completed.  Mmmm.  Those of us old enough to remember the building of the Humber bridge in UK know how easy it is for a perfectly good bridge to be perfectly scuppered by poor soil mechanics.  But on the whole, I think the most likely explanation is that the bridge is closed because the SPDC don't want visitors in Myawaddy - or indeed, anywhere else in Karen state.  No doubt they have their reasons, see below.

We went to Thoo Mwe Khee school to see its Post ten project - this is simply a project to offer education for young people who have graduated Grade 10 at school but who have nowhere else to continue learning because the school stops at Grade 10.  The idea is to get them to university entrance standard, especially in English since the university they are most likely to attend is an international university which teaches in English.  We met some really wonderful young people whose English was excellent. Fluent, clear, and with wider vocabulary than many pupils the same age in UK.  This has been achieved in conditions which most UK pupils could hardly imagine.  Little food, no security, no comfort, no TV, no night clubs, no alcohol, no parents in some cases and - and this is the biggest deprivation - virtually no books!  If anybody deserves the chance of university education, it is these young people.  Unfortunately the cost is about $5000 U.S. per annum, so as far beyond their financial reach as the average Rubens or Picasso.

Thoo Mwe Khee is very close to the border.  Studies at the school have been in earshot of fighting and shelling which has been happening almost daily on the Burma side since November.  Recently a group of 32 men, women and children, who had fled Burma for sanctuary in Thailand, returned to tend their rice paddies on the Burma side.  They returned to Burma every day, but slept in Thailand.  One day they were ambushed, and all were killed.  Men, women and four children.  One of the children, aged 7, was shot in the back, presumably whilst fleeing the ambush.  Now you can see why, perhaps, it is better for the SPDC that the bridge stays closed.

Driving with our irrepressible Aussie guide, Shirley, on a road which runs right by the border, at times just a few yards from Burma, we were struck by how peaceful and beautiful is this part of the world.  At times there were Thai military checkpoints - which I have to say I find completely reassuring - staffed by cheerful, competent and polite Thai military.  It is easy to forget their guns are loaded.

There is a horrifying picture of a dog from Burma which came with its owner to Thailand for safety.  Obviously he went home for reasons of his own, but when he returned to Thailand it was minus one leg.  The dog is a land mine victim.  His owner, who is distraught, says they owe a huge debt to the dog, because he has shown the village that it is not safe to go home.  This place is as indiscriminately brutal as it is stunningly beautiful.

On a happier note, we finished the day with a visit to Hsa Thoo Lei's new school vegetable garden.  Quite simply the best school farm I have ever seen.  Neat, tidy, productive and tended by an enthusiastic group of pupils, enthusiastic not least because they are allowed to use the little Kubota tractor.  But they approached watering and other manual jobs with enthusiasm and care.  The farm is relatively new, but is already making a significant contribution to the school kitchen.  Hsa Thoo Lei does many things well, but this is an especially good example.

Saturday: Mae Tao Clinic

Eighty percent of prosthetics fitted at the Mae Tao Clinic are land mine victims.  Men, women and children.

The clinic is an amazing place.  An assault of noise and heat, with patients and prospective patients waiting patiently in rows outside clinics and admissions offices.  A higgledy-piggeldy cluster of buildings, which has emerged over time on the basis of necessity and possibility rather than any grand master plan.  The clinic serves around 160,000 patients each year, half each from the Burmese migrant population in Thailand and from within Burma itself.  The recent fighting on the other side of the border has affected the numbers of patients.  At the time of the fighting in Myawaddy, about a mile away, there was a stream of gunshot injuries.  Since then, the normal stream of less urgent cases has been depressed by the closure of the border locally: the 'Friendship Bridge' has been closed officially since July.  But this week a couple of  surgeons from UK are performing opthalmic surgery, and there are long queues of people formed to take advantage of their skill.  Those in urgent need have managed to find places to cross irrespective of risk.

We have an hour or more with Dr Cynthia Maung, the gentle but impressive founder of the clinic and its associated projects.  Our interest is in the Dry Food Program, which is intended to supply basic foodstuffs to children in boarding houses at migrant schools.  Generally speaking these children have come to Thailand for an education which they cannot access inside Burma, and they have no close family in the area.  They may be orphans, or their parents may still be inside Burma.  The program is supposed to provide six basic foods to the children - rice, oil, beans, fish, salt and sweet powder.  This is the bare minimum on which the children can survive, but not enough for them to thrive.  Numbers of children have grown, and prices of food are high, so at present the standard ration is two items - rice and oil*.  The figures for 2011 are stark.  There are about 3000 children in the boarding houses eligible for help from Mae Tao Clinic.  The cost of the six basic ration items is about 350 Thai baht (£7 uk) per month. Total cost per month about one million baht (£21,000).  Total annual budget about 12 million baht.  Budget forcast to be available is only 8 million baht, including, we hope, two million from Thai Children's Trust.  That leaves a shortfall of one third of the minimum sum required to give these children an inadequate diet.  The world seems to have turned its back on these migrant children, and to have lost interest in them, their welfare and their education.  We have not, but what we can do to help is so pitifully small in relation to the scale of the problems.

In the afternoon we visited the SAW children, a happy, noisy, joyous bunch of 50 children who live in a three bedroomed suburban villa with their care staff.  It is overcrowded, and the neighbours don't much like the noise.  But the children are happy and healthy and very obviously well cared for.

Once a teacher, always a teacher, Ruth Flanagan got stuck in to some serious play.  See above.

* Mae Tao Clinic point out that the ration situation in December was redeemed by a generous donation of fish paste, beans and other items.

Thursday: Camillians Lat Krabang

Fr Gioanni Contarin with some of the Lat Krabang students.

Its a year since we first visited the Camillian school at Lat Krabang for children with special needs.  There are about 20 resident students, some old friends from the Camillian Social Centre at Rayong, others new recruits.  But in the year since we first visited there have been three major developments.

First the work in local communities has expanded beyond recognition.  There were a few children coming in daily from outside.  Now there are 70.

The school had no resident physiotherapist a year ago.  Today it still has no resident physiotherapist, but it has no need of one since trainee physiotherapists from Bangkok Teaching hospitals visit almost every day.  Each child who needs it has a personally developed care plan which is devised by senior physiotherapists and paediatric orthopaedic specialists: these plans are implemented by the trainees and by the Centre staff, and reviewed and - if necessary - revised on a fortnightly basis.

The school has been registered as a centre for non-formal education under Thai government rules.  This means that each child can have a similarly tailored education plan, which meets their needs and abilities

These developments mean that each child can receive a very high level of personal service from the centre, and that is increasingly expert help is available to a very large number of children.  Attached to the headquarters of the Camillian order in Thailand, it is housed in rather a grand building.  But the staff are arm and competent.  the food is good, and the support and care given to each child are second to none in Thailand.  This project deserves more help from us than we are able to give it at present.

Wednesday: Central Purchasing.

The Central Purchasing stores at the Fr Ray Foundation may not occur immediately as the stuff from which dreams are woven, and maybe it is not exactly that.  But it is a story of huge achievement driven  by a very dedicated son of Fr Ray, Luksamapa Monyarid, known to his friends as Luke, but baptised as Raymond.

CP was the vision of Brother Denis Gervais, who has been with the Foundation since it was Fr Ray, not a Foundation.  Bro Denis was very senior in IBM and knows a great deal about business and about computing.  After years of negotiation he was able to establish Central Purchasing in 2002, with Luke in the manager's chair.

Since that time, CP has grown to encompass all the purchasing, estates maintenance, vehicle fleet management and other practical aspects of the Foundation's work.  One of the most complex tasks is receiving and compiling the requirements of each of the projects for food - the Foundation feeds more than 1,000 people three meals each day, so quantities are enormous.  The different requirements have to be complied into a single list, put out to quote or quotes, quotes accepted, orders placed, goods delivered, receipted and validated so that when a cheque is issued in payment, the Foundation is confident that it is paying for goods that were required, properly costed and ordered, and genuinely delivered.

CP also manages the Foundation's farm, delivering fresh fruit and vegetable to the projects daily.

No system is completely proof against abuse, but this one is pretty robust, well tried and efficient.  It is estimated that CP saves the Fr Ray Foundation 30,000,000 Thai baht each year (about £600,000) at a total cost of about 3,000,000 baht (£60,000).  Amazing value for money, and a great achievement by Bro Denis, Luke and the CP Team

Tuesday: Day Care, Drop In, Fountain of Life

Another project which focuses on children of poor families, especially those whose families work in construction and other poorly paid trades, is the Day Care Centre which welcomes more than  a hundred toddlers and pre-school children every day.  Each family is carefully vetted to ensure that it is genuinely eligible for the free provision given by the Drop In.  Each child is given two uniforms, a smart backpack, three meals a day, lots of fun, sleep and some training in reading, writing - even in computing (see above!).

One year ago a child from the Day Care returned to his home on the canal, and for whatever reason fell in.  He could not swim, and was drowned.  The Day Care immediately began swimming lessons for all the children to help protect them from similar accidents.  Watching one of the first swimming classes a year ago, we saw children terrified of the water, screaming and shaking with fright.  They had to be coaxed in.  Getting wet all over in funny coloured water was evidently not part of their life experience.  What a change this year, as a whole class threw itself enthusiastically into the water at the blow of a whistle - some before the whistle blew - and splashed busily across.  The only shivering this year was children chilled to the bone by spending too long in water at an arctic 20 Centigrade.  Its all about what you are used to....

On to the school for children with special needs, a heavily over-subscribed service for children facing a variety of challenges including autism and Downs.  In two small rooms a dedicated and expert staff give training, teaching, physiotherapy and other support to children who attend in shifts so that the limited resources can be shared between them, and so that each one can enjoy a period of individual attention from the staff.  For all that it is crowded and under-equipped, there is an air of happiness about this school.  It is obviously massively appreciated by its pupils and most of all by their parents, for whom it is a ray of real hope.  There are plans for the school to move across the road into a more suitable building on the site presently occupied by the Carpentry Workshop, but these appear to be on hold pending a revival in fundraising fortunes.  Expect an appeal in due course  this school is doing good work and deserves our support.

Some of the happiest people in Pattaya are the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, whose mission is to disdvantaged women. Their approach is simple and sincere, and the smiles are genuine. But their confidence is based on sound and sophisticated training, years of experience and profound, practical faith.  Pattaya is not short of disadvantaged women, not only those who are sex workers or in low paid and high risk jobs like hotel kitchens, but those working on building sites, and those in dysfunctional relationships with foreigners.  It is  hard for women in such heavily subordinate roles to feel self-respect or confidence.  The Sisters have a lot of work to do.  They offer vocational training in a number of skills - sewing, cooking, Thai massage - and in a number of more academic subjects like computer studies and, especially, languages.  Every day some 600 training sessions are delivered in their 'Fountain of Life' building: their project is the most fantastic value for money.  The purpose of their work is to equip women with the confidence and the ability to make their own choices.

'I was talking to a class', said Sr Veronica (in grey above), 'when this lady suddenly shouted out 'I want to leave him'.  There was complete silence.  Eventually I asked 'Why do you stay'.  A discussion started.  It turned out that the girl's mother needed an operation, and she needed the money the foreigner gave her to pay for her mother's care.'

There are real dilemmas faced by women, especially youngest daughters, under heavy traditional pressure to provide for their parents in poverty or old age.  In a safe space the ladies have the opportunity to share and discuss without pressure from an abusive partner or employer, and gain the confidence to take their own decisions.  Every day there is a queue of ladies on the doorstep anxious to sign up and join the ladies inside, the word-of-mouth advertising is amazingly positive.

Many of the ladies are mothers.  By helping them, we help their children to a better and more stable life.

Next blog may not appear until Friday or Saturday since we will be busy tomorrow and travelling to Mae Sot Friday.

Monday: Drop in Centre and Half-Way House

Tucked away near the intersection of two of the busiest roads in Pattaya, the Drop In Centre is the current incarnation of the rescue work which gave Fr Ray Brennan his huge reputation as a fearless defender of children's rights and safety.  There is a heartbreaking story of a child who had been kept caged, whom Fr Brennan rescued, and which clung to him for hours.

Today we were told about two little boys.  One was offered to the Drop In by the police.  He had been caught red handed, stealing DVDs.  He came from way down in the south of Thailand, he knew no-one in Pattaya, but had been told there was a lot of money here.  The Centre took him in.  Gradually they unearthed his story.  He had been travelling alone, living on the streets, for two years.  He had been all over Thailand.  He had parents, but he had fallen out with them because he had an uncontrollable temper, he had run away.  He wanted to go home.  'But will my family want me?' he asked Khun Jupe, the senior Social Worker, with tears in his eyes.  'That's my problem', said Jupe.  And solved it.  She contacted the family, who were delighted and relieved to know their boy was alive and well.  She put him in front of a psychiatrist from the local Bangkok Pattaya Hospital, who gives his time free to the Drop In.  The psychiatrist discovered that the child had a small illness which caused his temper tantrums, and which was easily managed by very light medication.  The boy was returned to his family in the south, and - so far - has lived happily ever after.  The Drop In organises about 30 such family reunions every year

Not all stories have a happy ending.  Khun Jupe and her team found a mother and son living on the beach.  The mother, a working prostitute, had to find minders to look after her boy when she had a customer.  Jupe was able to persuade her that this was an unsuitable life for the boy.  Mum gave up the boy to the Drop In, but has not given up her profession.

Numerically, the biggest problems faced by the Drop In are not children or families living rough, but the many children of building workers living in the shanties that typically accompany any major buidling project.  Hidden behind high walls of corrugated iron, these temporary villages are not immediately obvious to visitors unless they know what to look for.  Most building workers are from outside Pattaya, so their children are not eligible for education here.  The Drop In will help by adding children to its House Registration - the document that determines where a child may be educated - thus clearing the way to school.  This sometimes requires hours of patient work, locating birth certificates and identifying schools prepared to accept a new pupil of somewhat uncertain background.

Some young people cannot be reunited with their parents.  Some of these, the younger ones, can be found a place at the Fr Ray Children's Village where they settle successfully into family life.  Others may settle more easily at the Children's Home.  A very few are unable to leave the Drop In, and live there until their education and training is complete.  Two such young men, one now a trainee chef, the other an electrician, have started earning and have moved into the recently opened 'half way house' (above) where they are learning to manage their own lives, and their own money.  Paid for by the Danish supporters of the Trust, the house is small, but well-equipped and comfortable.  It fills a gap in support, and will benefit hundreds of children over coming years.

This project is tiny in numbers and costs, but does vitally important work which helps children in their hour of need.  Under Khun Jupe's management it has a planned and professional approach which brings a sense of method and order to work which can be confused and emotional.  It is great to see that this quiet professionalism brings regular happy results.

Sunday - Camillian Social Centre,

Fr Peter Pakhavi 

Another tradition is for our small party to visit the Camillian Social Centre in Rayong on the Sunday of our visit, to attend Mass with the children and usually to go on to the Garden of Eden project in the afternoon.  Mass at the Camillian Social Centre is always a memorable experience.  The children are fully involved with the service as altar boys, readers, and most importantly as the choir.  The singing is always deeply moving, filled with joy, hope and purpose, like the Centre itself.  Of course there are questions asked about bringing these children up as Catholics.  I am not a Catholic, nor am I any sort of evangelical, but I understand why the children share the faith.  When Fr Giovanni started his work, the children came with HIV infected parents.  Invariably the parents died, and Fr Giovanni was left with sole responsibility for the child.  Inevitably the child would also die, and Fr Giovanni would be beside them in their last moments.  He shared his faith with his children because it would bring them - and him - comfort in their last moments.

Now there is the miracle of affordable anti-retroviral drugs, so death is no longer inevitable.  But the ethos of the Centre had been established and continues, it is one huge Catholic family.  Whilst death may not be inevitable, it is by no means unknown.  Three days before our visit, New 2 let slip her frail grip on life aged just 11.  'It often happens', said Paul Baird, a volunteer from Manchester who has worked with the Centre for several years.  'The children sometimes arrive too late.  They seem to get better when they get treatment, but then suddenly the virus fights back, and they have no strength to beat it.  They need to be here two years before we know they are safe.'  New 2 had been at the Centre just a year.

So the Mass and the children's upbeat singing had a special poignancy for them this Sunday.  There cannot have  been any one of them who had not thought 'that could so easily have been me'.  But this close family has born the loss of New 2 with great fortitude thanks to its shared faith and the confidence and strength which flow from Fr Peter and Fr Pridha, the two priests who now lead the Camillian Centre.

I was pulled to the front by Fr Peter, the priest who now heads the medical and social care projects, who explained that the children wanted to give me a present.  They sang me a song.  What better present could there be in this place where music is so important.  I was very touched, and very grateful.  This was a special Sunday which I will remember for many years.  Although the children were bright and cheerful, I think all our party were prick-eyed at points.

The Mass is followed by a chance to meet old friends like Khun Jintana (who I now discover is known to her friends as Khun Coy) who works so hard on sponsorship matters.  Then lunch, with Fr Peter and Fr Pridha, the new Superior, and all the children from the Centre and from Independent Living.  A chance to meet old friends and make some new.  Then off to the Garden of Eden to revisit the house which we saw opened just one year ago.

This was a great moment.  The house is now home to 11 orphans, children whose lives have been massively changed by HIV although they are not themselves HIV+.  A happy group, in the care of Miss Phongphan Phayupa, a dynamo lady who is always busy.  Those people who kindly made donations for this house can be proud of how their money has been used.  The house is sparkling clean, tidy, well organised.  The children have a full rota of duties and homework from waking at 6 a.m. to bed again at 8 p.m..  They have their own kitchen garden, and help with the cleaning, washing, feeding the fish and feeding the frogs.  It is a busy life.  They attend a local school, and the small group take care of each other.  The newest recruit, a young man of about ten, was asked whether he was happy in his new home. 'Yes', he replied.  'What do you like best about it?'  'My friends.' he said.  'Who are your friends'.  Without a pause he started reeling off names, and then stopped dead and looked straight at us. 'All of them', he said.

Saturday: Redemptorist Foundation for People with Disabilities, Children's Village, Children's Home, Chinese Acrobats at the Orphanage

First meeting with the day with old friend Suporntum Mongkolsawadee, one of the most impressive - maybe the most impressive - players in the world of disabled education, employment and rights in Thailand today.  Once a pupil at the Redemptorist Vocational School for the Disabled (known here as 'Mahathai'), Suporntum's ability was recognised and he swiftly became a teacher, then Head Teacher.  He used that position with great skill to build the reputation and capacity of the school and to help advance the rights of people with disabilities throughout Thailand to access education and employment on equal terms.  Some time ago Suporntum moved across to the head the Redemptorist Foundation, whose services to disabled people include the job placement agency, including a 'job club', small enterprise development, handicraft training and sales, the provision of services to disabled people locally through the Chonburi Association of People with Disabilities and a tiny school offering specialist services to children with special needs ranging from physical handicaps to autism.  It is a daunting range of problems, but one of Suporntum's great strengths has been his ability to choose and promote people of real ability to work alongside him.

One of these is Eknarin Swatwaengkuang, Chief Job Placement Officer.  His group acts as a specialist dating agency, painstakingly matching  potential employees to potential employers in terms of ability, experience, interests - and investigates whether the individual's particular disability permits them to function successfully in the employers unadapted premises, since there is no legal obligation here for employers to make changes to accommodate disabled employees.  It is not an easy job, and many potential placements fall at that last fence because the disabled candidate cannot use the employer's premises and the employer cannot, or will not, pay to make changes.  But the JPA has built up a list of employers who have successfully recruited people with disabilities as employees, and who have come back for more.  The target of 250 people to be placed in work in 2011 is not high, but it is realistic.  In 2010, 160 such placements were made, each one a triumph for common sense.

There will be more about the work of the Foundation later in the week.

A housemother and her children at the Fr Ray Children's Village.

Our next port of call was the Fr Ray Children's Village, a project started a couple of years ago which gives some children the opportunity to live in a stable quasi-family environment.  Each house has a 'house mother' who sleeps in the house with the children and is a full-time carer.  But unlike real mums, they can call on the services of an 'Auntie' to give them time for the occasional day off.  There can be no doubting that this is a heaven for children who have come from tough and sometimes abusive backgrounds.  They live in a 'street' - actually a private cul-de-sac - in their own family home.  But all the neighbours are similarly homes to families with young children, so there are loads of friends to play with.  And play they do, happily and safely all around the site.  The smiles on the faces of the Mums and the children really say all that needs to be said about the success of this project.

Children's Home residents, staff and visitors.

Next visit was to the Children's Home.  There was a time a few years ago when I was ashamed for visitors to see this project, it was failing badly.  Then along came Khun Daeng, who turned out to be a miracle-worker.  

Khun Daeng has lots of experience in running children's homes, and applies a simple philosophy that a busy child is a happy child, and therefore a child who is unlikely to get into trouble.  The children have a huge choice of activities. 

During our short visit we saw girls picking and weighing mushrooms. boys doing their washing, the football team return from a match (they lost, don't even ask!) lots of children in the library watching a dvd on a huge television (it was Saturday!) and no doubt others were following different pastimes in parts of the site which we didn't manage to visit. The Home has two mushroom sheds, and sells half its production.  It breeds chickens, grows vegetables, has dogfish tanks and pigs.  Children can learn Thai boxing or Tae Kwando.  There are computers, books, TVs, football pitches.  And all are in regular use. 

Well done, Khun Daeng, a great achievement - a happy, busy home for happy, busy children who have fulfilled, purposeful lives.

Finally to the Guanxi Acrobat Dance Show at the Pattaya Orphanage - sorry no photos of this one.  An amazing show - the acrobats were astonishing.   But to Fr Michael Weera, Khun Toy and their team, warmest congratualtions.  The organisation was perfect, everything went entirely smoothly, and they hit their target of 4000 people (it looked more from the stage) being drawn into the Pattaya Orphanage to make friends.  Thanks for the invitations, it was a storming success all round.

Friday 28 - Pattaya Orphanage, the Deaf School and the School for Blind Children

It is quite something to be Father to more than 180 children at the age of seventy, but this man, Fr Michael Weera, is happy in that job.  He is the Director of the Pattaya Orphanage, and he is having a ball!  Like Fr Ray, he loves the children;  he cares about their successes and their failures.  Like Fr Ray, he is enormously proud of the the group which has made it to university.  He has done deals with local private Catholic schools to admit children from the Orphanage at reduced or no cost so that as many as possible get the best possible start in life.  The children know that he is there for them, whatever they need, whenever they need it.

To pay school fees, the Orphanage has run a terrifically successful fundraising campaign locally.  One event produced a massive 1.6 million baht surplus for the fund.  The following day a child fell badly from a see-saw and had to be rushed to the Bangkok Pattaya Hospital.  'There was no time to take him to a public hospital', said Fr Michael 'he would certainly have died.'  The boy went to private hospital.  He had brain surgery and massses of stitches.  Today he is fine.  A lot of the 1.6 million had gone, so the Orphanage went out and raised some more.  Children's needs come first, which is right, but this gentle man is clearly quietly determined.  The children could not have a better champion.

This is the amazing therapeutic play area which has opened since our last visit.  The facility is shared between the Orphanage and the School for the Deaf.

This was a great morning, we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.  Thank you, Fr Mike, thank you Pattaya Orphanage.  

The indomitable Ajarn Aurora, founder and still Head of the Pattaya School for the Blind kindly gave us two hours of her time in the afternoon.  We had a long and interesting discussion about the stunning new building she has constructed across the road from the School.  The building - the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn building - will be a Vocational Training Centre  when it is finally completed later this year.

It is difficult to estimate what this tiny lady has achieved during her busy life of service to others, or what her work has meant to generations of visually impaired children who have passed through the school she founded.  What we do know,for absolute certain, is that she needs our help to fund the salaries of properly trained and qualified teachers of vocational skills like Thai Classical music and handicrafts so that her children can access better jobs more easily.  You may hear more about this later in the year, who knows?

The day ended with a jolly and rather large dinner party during which I had the privilege of meeting Fr Cotan, legendary among Thai Redemptorists since he was on the second group of US Redemptorists to arrive in Thailand.  He has been in Thailand since 1949, and is now a sprightly 95.  But maybe as unforgettable was the picture of the current Vice-Provincial of the Redemptorists in Thailand making cat noises to a toddler at the next table.  They were both having fun.

Back to Pattaya

Since 2004, every visit to Pattaya has started the same way.  In a quiet, leafy graveyard at the back of St Niklaus Church is the grave of Fr Ray Brennan, who lies in the Redemptorist plot beside his friend, colleague and brother Redemptorist Fr Patrick Morrissey.  Each year we spend a moment there, place flowers for each, and try to remember amidst the pleasure of meeting all our old friends, that our visit is work and has a serious purpose.  On this, our eighth visit, we were accompanied as always by Fr Ray's devoted friend and PA, Khun Toy who has always generously found the time to join us for this visit.

But as Fr Ray was fond of saying 'choose a job you love and you will never do a day's work in your life'.  For me, it is the people.  If you work with people you like and respect, then work becomes a joy.  And coming back to Pattaya is always a joy.  An hour or two with Khun Toy catching up on news of old friends.  We will visit the Pattaya Orphanage tomorrow, and again on Saturday, if possible.  After we left Khun Toy, we found Audrey Williams sorting donated clothes outside CP, Luke with literally tonnes of donated rice inside.  Moments later, Khun Somnuk, Khun Jai, Khun Boonthawee.  Three wonderful women, devoted to the Fr Ray Foundation.  Minutes later, Fr Peter Pattarapong stopped his car to get out and say hello! although he was on his way to the keenly fought basketball final at the national disabled games.  Chonburi lost narrowly, but the Vocational School had graduates in the winning team, and in the teams which came second and third.

There are so many friends I cannot name them all.  We know more people here than we know in our home village.  In fairness, the Fr Ray Foundation Family is about ten times the size of our village, which has but 140 people, or so.  After a very interesting meeting with Fr Peter and Bro Denis, and another meeting to discuss film, especially a film about and of Fr Larry Patin, we retired to our room with faces aching happily with constant smiling.

Oxbow Lakes

We flew into beloved Thailand today, in my case for the fifteenth time.  I say 'beloved'advisedly: if we didn't like it a lot, and have a lot of friends here, we really wouldn't keep coming back.  And here we are.

But the thought for today was sparked by an amazing view of Burma from the aircraft (thank you EVA, brilliant as always) which flew for an hour down the Andaman Sea coast, sometimes on the coast, sometimes just a bit inland.  The landscape here, as in Thailand, is formed by limestone hills with wide areas of plain formed by the deposit of silt from mountains hundreds of miles away in the Himalayas and in China.  The plains are dotted with Oxbow lakes, lakes formed by a meandering river eventually eroding its banks so that the looping meander is cut off as the river cuts a more direct course.  I 'did' these in Geography fifty years ago, but I have never before seen such classic examples as today.  They don't happen in the UK, where our comparatively short rivers tumble swiftly off the hills and batter their short path directly to the sea.

And the landscape of Burma is very natural.  Little by way of roads, towns, industrial developments. From the air, it is apparently virgin jungle with little human impact.

As you do when tired and a bit dehydrated, I let my mind wonder.  I thought back to 'Pop Weg', Mr Victor Steggal to give him his proper name, our Geography teacher at Ashville College in the 1960s.  It was he who first introduced me to Oxbow Lakes.  He also introduced us all to Yerba Mate (we were studying South America for O-level) a truly unpleasant, but very memorable experience.  He was that rare and wonderful thing, a born teacher.  He had the distinction of having been born at one minute past midnight on the 1st January 1900, so aged exactly with the century, until he dropped out in the eighties, and the century carried on.  His white moustache was neatly trisected by two deep amber lines, which spoke volumes about numerous cigarettes consumed, although never in sight of his pupils.  He was the only Master remaining at Ashville who had been evacuated with the school to the Lake District during the war.  He was a bachelor, a Cambridge graduate, when I knew him quite ancient, and astonishingly capable of communicating his interest in and enthusiasm for countries beyond the narrow compass of Yorkshire.

He was 48 when Burma achieved independence from the British Empire.  In our - somewhat precipitate - departure we left a few apparently minor issues incompletely resolved.  I wonder how 'Pop Weg' would feel if he knew that more than sixty years later, and probably thirty years after his death, those unresolved issues are still costing lives.  Burma as a country is no better off - arguably worse - than she was in 1948.  The view from the air says, by contrast, Thailand has done well.  Her countryside has roads, trading estates, new towns, visible evidence of investment and economic growth.  Her people are increasingly prosperous and, although that prosperity is by no means evenly shared, there are today very many Thai people who have the benefit of secure and well-paid employment, a good education, proper healthcare and the freedom to engage in politics.  That last comment will cause some squeals, even from my friends, but please!  Compared with Burma?  Compared with Burma Thailand has moved forward at lightspeed , her people have every right and reason to hope - and a real expectation - that this vital and confident country will find its way to some sort of generally acceptable constitutional settlement.  That may not be close, it may be hard to achieve, but it is certainly achievable.  Our prayer must be that it can be achieved peacefully.  Burma, by contrast again, has gone backwards since 1948.  Her people have every reason to be jealous of the Thai, but they probably don't have the time.

As a Brit, although maybe more as a historian than a geographer, I have to face this question - did we let Burma down?  I am very afraid that we did just that.  I think Mr Steggal might agree. This is not what anyone expected in 1948.