Thailand Program
Tentative Thailand Trip Dates: June 11th – 23rd, 2010
Meet the 2010 Thailand Team Leader: Sarah Law
Baan Klong Sai and Phang Nga 2010 YouthLINC Year!
The YouthLINC Thailand team will be returning in June 2010 to work in the small communities north of Phuket. The team will visit Home and Life tsunami orphanage again, but will start work in Phang Nga City, using Wat Baan Sai School as a central service location. As always, English instruction, community health, and microenterprise are critical elements of the service we do. YouthLINC participants will also improve kitchen and classroom areas, tile floors, provide a playground for the school, bring hygiene and school supplies to this jungle community.
Khao Lak, Thailand Report – 2009
The YouthLINC team traveled back to Thailand this year to continue serving the people of Khao Lak, a community just north of Phuket, heavily affected by the Tsunami of 2004. YouthLINC students focused their efforts at the Home and Life Orphanage, continuing the sewing and baking vocational training and microenterprise efforts begun last year. The team provided a new kitchen roof and a fish hatchery to help feed the children and provide income for the orphanage by selling the fish. The team also worked at the Baan Klong Sai School, a jungle school, tiling floors, teaching English, cleaning up garbage and spending time with the children. They passed out hygiene kits to the Moken people, a sea dwelling people displaced by the Tsunami, worked on several micro-enterprise opportunities and held a health fair for the community, teaching classes on staying healthy, anti-smoking, hand washing and dental hygiene, and the team taught about first aid and passed out basic kits to the community which has limited access to first line care.
In March 2009, YouthLINC worked with the Rotary Clubs of Patong Beach, Southwest Valley Sunrise, and dozens of other Rotarians in southeast Asia to fund a retaining wall so that Home and Life orphanage would not fall into a ravine! Kudos to the Patong Beach Rotarians who devoted so much time, energy, and money to saving this home for tsunami orphans!
In 2010, a Rotary grant supported by Southwest Valley Sunrise, Vernal, Richfield and Patong Beach clubs will provide a waste water system to the Baan Klong Sai School, as well as computers, mosquito nets, furniture and gardening equipment.
YouthLINC is amazing! I love what the experience has done for my attitude; it was the best year of my life! I can’t wait to continue serving in my own community. -Amanda Airmet, Thailand 2009
Medical
The Medical team planned and put together a health fair for the parents of the students at the Baan Klong Sai School and taught classes on several topics related to healthy living, nutrition, basic hygiene and first aid, substance abuse including an anti-smoking class. Students also taught lessons in dental hygiene and brought dental kits complete with toothbrushes, toothpaste and floss to pass out to the community. There is no dentist in this area. The medical team also brought supplies to stock the first aid room at the Home and Life orphanage, and the team P.A. spent time teaching and training the nurses in the area, with interested YouthLINC students observing.
Construction
The construction team along with the entire YouthLINC group worked on a number of construction projects at the orphanage and the jungle school in Baan Klong Sai. They dug a fish hatchery for the orphanage 60 feet wide and 4 feet deep and the team paid for 1,000 fish to be placed in the fish hatchery when it was completed. The fish will go to feed the orphanage and will be sold in the markets to provide self-sustaining income for the orphanage. The team also tiled six classrooms at the jungle school, built a wall to separate the kitchen areas from the bathrooms, and leveled and cemented the floor in the kitchen area. They worked with the community on all these projects, including cleaning up garbage around the school and providing new trash receptacles.
Education
The education team worked in two schools, teaching over 120 students in the area. Participants held an English fun fair day and set up booths around the school where they taught several English classes focusing on the occupations most useful for the community: working at a hotel, transportation and restaurant work. They also taught classes in sports and science and left the school with visual aids, handouts and other teaching supplies to be able to continue with their English classes. The team spent four days teaching at Baan Klong Sai as well, and each YouthLINC student prepared a lesson to teach at the school on an English topic of their choice. YouthLINC students also gathered and put together over 200 school kits for Baan Klong Sai, the orphanage, and the Moken village. Handmade bags were prepared for each child at the school and contained notebooks, pencils, crayons, flash cards and other needed school supplies.
Seeing the Home and Life orphanage kids run up to us everyday and jump into our arms made me feel so humble and grateful. It is an experience I will never forget. -Trevor Tooke, Thailand 2009
I loved teaching the little children at the jungle school. I loved their eyes and their smiles and I hope to never forget it as long as I live.” -Erik Jensen, Thailand
2009 Vocational/Micro-enterprise
The micro-enterprise team followed up with the bakery at the Home and Life orphanage that YouthLINC help them set up in 2008. Last year, a Patong Beach and Southwest Valley Sunrise Rotary club grant went towards the purchase of ovens and baking equipment for the orphanage. YouthLINC participants taught baking classes and then bought the children’s baked goods. This year, when the team returned, they made signs to advertise the bakery to the community and tourists. The orphanage is building a paved road directly to the bakery so that tour buses can access and purchase goods from the orphanage. The team also purchased two new sewing machines and taught sewing classes where they made aprons for the bakery and curtains to put up in the school at the orphanage.
Cross-Cultural
For the opening and closing ceremonies in the village, the team gathered games and prizes for a carnival at the jungle school and spent one of the last afternoons in the village playing games, painting faces and playing with the children. The team held a health and fun fair at the Moken village, bringing hygiene kits, soccer balls, field equipment and jerseys for the children to set up a soccer league. Our team was able to learn about the culture, oral history, and hardships of these sea dwelling people displaced and placed in poverty by the Tsunami.
2009 Program: June 6 - June 19, 2009
Meet the 2009 Thailand Team Leader: Britnie Anderson
Khao Lak, Thailand
Facing our most challenging language barrier and our most oppressive tropical heat, the 2008 Thailand team accomplished more than could ever be expected in our new international site. Khao Lak, north of Phuket, was hit hard by the 2004 Tsunami and though the resorts have recovered, the people will bear the scars -- physically, economically, and emotionally -- for years to come.
It really hit hard to talk to people about the tsunami and made me understand the devastation the community experienced."
--Jessica Brothers.
This first year in Thailand, the YouthLINC team worked at an orphanage for children who lost parents or whose parents were impacted by the tsunami. They constructed a storeroom, tiled a floor in a multi-purpose room, taught baking and sewing and beading so that the youngsters could learn a trade. Team members raised the money for the sewing machines and bought most of the baking supplies. Each morning, participants were greeted with cupcakes and cookies for sale. Youngsters had gotten up early to bake before school! The children also helped our team with two massive murals to decorate the facility.
A Rotary International Matching Grant bought new ovens for the orphanage and a water tank, as well as the equipment for a first aid room at the primary school the children attend. The team moved in the new furniture, fans, and equipment, and stocked new cabinets with donated basic first aid supplies. Our medical committee trained the school nurse. This first aid room now provides first line care for over 300 students.
During the service trip, team members taught English at the primary school through lessons on shapes, animals, emotions, weather, body parts, and the solar system. Most participants - and schoolchildren - agreed this was one of the most rewarding and fun parts of the service. Because in this area of Thailand, the economy is based on tourism, villagers must learn English to be able to work at hotels and restaurants.
I loved teaching English at the school. As part of one lesson, we were singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes". It was cool how we couldn't speak the same language but I was still able to make a connection with every kid."
--Laura Liddiard.
While part of the team held a carnival for the children, other members presented a community health fair for parents, teaching dental hygiene, sanitation, nutrition, and first aid. The 2009 team plans lessons on HIV, smoking, diabetes, high-blood pressure and cholesterol - topics suggested by the community. The team also donated medical supplies to the local hospital, many of which will be distributed to local community health centers.
Other highlights of Thailand service include a cultural exchange "Young People's Panel" with students from the local secondary school, and a visit to the Moken village. Mokens are 'sea gypsies' who lost their boats and way of life after the Tsunami in 2004. They are now relegated to make-shift communities on land, built mostly by the government, but sometimes by charities. The adjustment is very hard for them, as they even speak their own language. In 2008, YouthLINC brought hygiene kits, clothing and shoe donations to the village. In 2009 we will teach classes, offer a health fair and our microenterprise program, providing business skills lessons and small business loans to help the community become self-sustaining on land.
The most memorable experience that I had on the trip was when we went to the Moken Village. The lives of these people were totally disrupted by the tsunami, and they will never get their seafaring life back. Just seeing the people in such a terrible and vulnerable situation made me feel gratitude for what I have and empathy toward others who have less."
--Eve Guymon.
In 2009, a Rotary International Grant will build a retaining wall at the orphanage, built on precarious land next to a ravine, to stop erosion of the streambed and prevent children from falling into the rocky slope. The team will also teach at and renovate the Bahn Klong Sai Primary School in the nearby Phang Nga District. This school sits in the middle of the jungle, is infested with termites and lacks a kitchen to feed the students, so the Michel Family is funding a modern facility, that the team will help install. A special thanks goes to the Patong Beach and Southwest Valley Sunrise Rotary Clubs for helping to make these projects possible.