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Well so far so good. ( 6 visits already)
It is now already 6 months further, we are sorry for a late update here.
But the project in Chiang Mai did take off with a lot of time needed to get to know each other and i am still learning every day.
Right now we are working on a revamp of the financials and the people working at the GArden. There is also a new partnership with the organization "Give and Live" you can find them here:
http://www.giveandlive.org/LahuHelpingHand.htm
The workload is actually not very heavy but it is all new to me, so it takes time to get to know everyone and understand the puzzle of history and presence.
In future we will have two organizations that will do fundraising and stream those funds into this single project. That will ensure its well being we reckon better.
Some latests pictures below, psl visit the other webpages as well.
These are some shots of the Garden in history till today.
We have progressed very well this year. Many new items have been added to house which was completed in end 2005
Second visit to Chiang Mai.
We have decided to help the project initiator Rob van den Oever to assist in the financial management and "fundraising" efforts as well as the email support.
The Project formally goes by the name:
LAHU Helping Hands Project-the Garden or LHHP the Garden.
You can find more of them here:
http://www.freewebs.com/lhhp-thegarden/index.htm
This project will be some sort of a support base in Thailand for us in the future.
For the moment we will do the support work from Singapore with regular visits to Chiang Mai.
Pls visit the above site often for updates about the LHHP.
Chiang Mai
In October 2005 we visited Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. With a suitcase full of second hand clothes we visited a home for orphans from 4 - 15 years of age that belong to mountain tribes in the area of the Thai and Burmese border. Those children are futigives and are not recognised by the Thai government as Thai citizens. The home is about 20 km from the city of Chiang Mai.
The beautiful new building of which the funds have been raised by Vieng Travel in Chiang Mai houses 30 children. The housemaster is Stanley, a Thai, who is an orphan from just after his birth. He lives there with his wife.
The house however is not complete. It has tables chairs and mattresses, but wardrobes and other storage cabines are lacking. These are no toys, books and computers.
Children go to the local school and in the afternoon Stanley's daughter helps the children with their homework. Stanley himself gives English lessons.
The house has a garden with fruit trees, there are a few pigs and chickens.
Stanley explains that he always depends on donations. There is seldom an opportunity to buy something extra for the children.
He spends all the money on food, medicine and electricity.
After a nice welcome and a tour around the premises we say goodbye.
Focus on Northeast Thailand, the Isan
Everyone now knows about the 'tsunami' and the kind of disaster it has caused throughout the whole of Thailand.
The worst part of this is that many people who survided and worked on Phuket are from the northeast part of Thailand which is called the Isan, it is one of the poorest regions in Thailand today.
During a resent trip to Laos we went around in the small border town NongKhai.
We got some interesting contacts but have not done any real projects yet.
Just outside Nong Khai is the Friendship Bridge that connects Thailand with Laos.
In Nong Khai are a few volunteer organisations named" Travel to Teach" and " Open Minds". These organisations do placements of volunteers in schools and temples to teach English and computer classes.
