Tuesday 29 January 2013

The Venue jomtien. fund raising evening

Our thanks to Ray Cornell owner of The Venue Jomtien for organising a special fund raising show for PSK last week starring Lady Diamond Sitges and which raised 27,000Baht from audience donations for the kids.



Special thanks to Lady Diamond Sitges for agreeing to take part in the fund raising show and our thanks to everyone who attended and who donated money for the kids. As always 100% of all money will be used for the benefit of the children.
www.thevenuejomtien.com
Registered Charity No. 1104335

100 Years From Today
It will not matter how big your bank account was, the sort of house you lived in, or the kind of car you drove. But the world may be a little better because your help touched the life of one child.

Monday 28 January 2013

Report on visit to Pattaya December 2012-January 2013

Visit to Pattaya December 2012 / January 2013

I am sure that I heard the sound of a celebration party starting as I left the offices of ‘MERCY Pattaya’ in mid-January at the end my visit. Understandably a celebration would have been in order as my visit threw the office into chaos for the five weeks I was there.

With the increased number of scholarship students even five weeks in Pattaya was not time enough to meet them all. At the students’ party a few children were off sick, a couple with Malaria, and others were involved in different assignments away from the school. At other schools we often turned up at the appointed time only to find that no arrangement had been made to locate the children in time for our visit. At one school we arrived at 11am to pick up three kids only to find that there was an eve of Children’s Day event going on and it took Suky almost an hour to locate the three kids we wanted amongst the one-thousand plus kids in the school play ground. Often we sat around at a school for forty-five minutes while the children were located despite the school having advance notice of a lunch or shopping trip for the kids.

We were able to update ourselves on the family situation of many of the children and also to make a few home visits to take a look at how we could help improve their living conditions. We completed twenty-six shopping and lunch trips on behalf of sponsors and of these only three trips did not involve a visit to KFC for lunch, during the last three lunch trips Suky, Boonying and I just sat and watched the kids enjoy their meal; there is only so much KFC one can eat.

The party at the Hauy Phong Home was a great success with almost three-hundred kids attending. We were also pleased that Ray Cornell of The Venue Jomtien who has raised a lot of money for PSK over the years was able to come along. Ray a singer and dancer by profession was impressed with the Home’s band and was first on the dance floor when the disco started. He proved a great hit with the kids many of who insisted on having their photo taken with him. All of the kids received gifts from lucky numbers pinned on a Christmas tree. We also purchased some sports equipment for the home and paid for the children to visit Suam Siam a Thai cultural heritage site. Just as I was leaving Pattaya Ray organised a show at The Venue starring Lady Diamond Sitges which was a sell out and through audience donations raised 27000Baht (£540) for PSK.

The party for the slum kids and kids from Baan Kong Por (formerly known as the MERCY Home) was also a success and we were pleased to welcome along Tom and Tim who sponsor a couple of kids at the home, it is always nice for the kids to meet their sponsors and the kids were really happy to see them. All of the kids received gifts and the kids from the slums also received a bag of rice and some extra food to take home with them.


I was invited to spend the afternoon and evening on Christmas Day at Baan Khong Por with the children. The children had school that day so the opening of presents was left until they returned home at 4pm. I can only say that twenty-eight children opening their gifts is an experience not to be missed. The kids firstly watch a ‘Ben Ten’ super hero DVD before opening their gifts and then as a special treat for dinner we included a couple of Ice-cream cakes from Svensons to help round off the day. It was early to bed for the kids as next day was a normal school day. All of the kids at Baan Khong Por who are of school age are sponsored through PSK so it gave me a good chance to catch up with how the kids are doing. The day was one of the highlights of the visit.

Staying with Baan Khong Por we were able to help by buying curtains and fittings for the kids dormitories, a new set of bunk beds as there were two girls having to share one bunk and another little girl was expected in a few days, a couple of tables for the Early Learning room and we have agreed to meet the food bill for the kids for three months. With twenty-eight growing kids clothes and shoes do not last very long so we bought 1000Baht (£20) of new clothes for each child at Christmas.

Sponsors of children or anyone wishing to visit Baan Khong Por to see the work that goes on are welcome to do so by appointment. Regrettably a very few people seem to think that they have a god given right to just turn up at the home unannounced completely disregarding the strict Child Protection Policy that the Thai government has and that Baan Khong Por must adhere to. Anyone wishing to visit can contact us and we will be happy to try to arrange a visit through the MERCY office where the visit will begin and transport made available to take visitors to the house. For obvious reasons the exact location of the house is not given out as the safety of the children is paramount if the refusal to give the address does annoy a few people who should better appreciate the need for child protection policies then so be it..

We were asked by Lhen Lhen who is the Leaders of the Chum Chom (slums) project if we could help with the cost of a special pushchair (stroller) for eighteen-month old baby ‘Vic’. ‘Vic’ was born with only a brain stem and is now too heavy to carry for the couple who the mother abandoned her to. Lhen Lhen was able to find a suitable pushchair that will give the baby’s large head substantial support and the cost of this was £100. A few days later speaking to Ian a   visiting UK sponsor and whilst talking about the baby he offered to meet the cost of the pushchair. ‘Vic’ has a life expectancy of up to ten years so we will be looking to see if we can assist with the cost of ongoing medication to make her comfortable.  

One child that we took shopping on behalf of a sponsor lives in a tiny dilapidated tin shack on a piece of wasteland next door to a chemical plant where a tank holding and acidic liquid recently exploded. A lot of the foliage on the piece of waste land was burned and the chemical sprayed over the house. We have offered to pay for the cost of the materials (appx £200) for the father of the child to rebuild or at least make the shack habitable, he is a general labourer and is willing to carry out the work himself.

On New Year’s Eve along with Lhen Lhen and her family I took three boys from Baan Khong Por to Pattaya beach to watch the fireworks and to see in the New Year. Along with a few thousand other people the kids enjoyed the night out as well as mingling with the crowds until early on New Year’s Day.




During the lunch / shopping trips for the students we were surprised how much the cost of clothes and food has increased since April when I last visited. Clothes that we were paying £3.50 for now cost £5 and school shoes which were £5 are now costing £7. Food has increased around 15% - 20% so it is little wonder that we have been asked for help by supplying monthly food parcels for more families this year.
On one slum two of the families who have over the past two year rebuilt their homes following flooding have been told to move off the land, the land owner has turned up and wants to clear the land for redevelopment. Both families each have two of our students in them so now these families must try to find another piece of wasteland to build somewhere to live. In one of the families the mother has recently received a twenty year prison sentence which leaves just the father to care for the two children aged a boy and a girl thirteen and eleven respectively.

Overall my visit was a success if at times a bit chaotic. My thanks to Liz and Suky in the MERCY office for acting as my social secretaries for five weeks and telling me (or in Suky’s case commanding me) where to be at certain times. My visit was particularly difficult for Liz who had eye surgery scheduled during my visit and who, against her eye surgeon’s advice, insisted on going to the office directly after being released from hospital to organise my day.

Also to Sharon, Khun Sudjai, Lhen Lhen and Francesca for facilitating my visits to Baan Khong Por, these frequent and informal visits gave me a good insight into the problems of bringing up twenty-eight kids and the associated costs of clothing and food. We have offered to consider helping with the costs of the kids’ welfare as and when we are able to do so. Also thanks to Liz’s driver Boonying for his ferrying me around Pattaya and all of his advice, the kids all love him and he is a valuable asset to the Scholarship project. He worked late into the evening on a number of occasions to ensure I got to where I was supposed to be. There are many other people in the MERCY organisation who helped make my visit run smoothly and I thank them all for their help. The MERCY office team is small but very effective.

If anyone wishes to find out more about the PSKSP charity or has any general questions our website is www.slumkids.org or we can be contacted at streetkids@ntlworld.com

We have published many of the photos of my visit and the links to these photos can be found at the bottom of this page,  
Don Ford.
Treasurer / Trustee

Web links: Hauy Phong Home 2013 New Year’s Party. http://tinyurl.com/b4kje7x

                    General photos Dec 2012 / Jan 2013.           http://smu.gs/14kkxkW

Tuesday 15 January 2013

Special fund raising evening in Pattaya.

For anyone living or visiting in Pattaya we are delighted to announce that Ray of the Venue Hotel and Showbar has arranged a fund raising evening for PSK on WEDNESDAY JANUARY 23rd. Star of the shows will be Lady Diamond.
make sure you go along to this one night event.
Our thanks to Ray at the Venue for his continuing support.
www.thevenuejomtien.com

Saturday 12 January 2013

A birthday party for the MERCY Home kids

Yesterday was a birthday party for three of the kids at the MERCY Home, all who had birthdays this month.

One girl celebrated her 12th birthday whilst for the boys it was their 9th and 13th birthdays. The staff at MERCY Home organised the party so that the party was held today, on the day that the boy celebrating a birthday became a teenager.

After watching a 'Ben Ten' cartoon the kids had their normal evening meal followed by ice cream cakes from Svenson's paid for by a sponsor.












Thursday 10 January 2013

The final shopping trip of this visit

Today we carried out the last of the lunch and shopping trips requested by sponsors for this visit.

Predictably lunch was to be at KFC where the students, Nonthacha (10yrs), Saluwat (13) and Aithicha (14) enjoyed the meal and a Coke before going to Tesco Lotus for some shopping.

Whilst Boonying shopped for food for Nonthacha's family and Suky took the two eldest boys to look for clothes I was left to shop with Nonthacha for Ben Ten shoes and T-shirts, Super Hero shirts and shorts and Ben Ten shoes. He did have the money to buy a toy but only wanted clothes and food for his family.

Nonthacha is an incredibly brave little Muslim kid, four years ago he pulled a pan of boiling oil from the cooker and was terribly burned all over his body from the waist down. The result is that he has horrendous scarring to the back and front of his body and no treatment can be carried out until he is in his late teens when his body will hopefully be strong enough to undergo laser treatment to remove the scar tissue.

He has to apply a specialist cream to his scarring every night to stop it from itching but amazingly is always smiling and full of life. At Tesco Lotus the checkout girl said to Suky "He is so. Beautiful, can I woo him?".

After shopping we dropped the food off to Nonthacha's mother along with a box of Dunkin Donuts then took the boys back to school after an enjoyable couple of hours.









Wednesday 9 January 2013

Scholarship students' party. January 2013

Today was the New year Party for our scholarship students at City School #7.

A great deal of hard work went into the preparation for the party, shopping to buy the gifts, packing the gifts, making up food packs for the kids to take home, organising the games, transport to and from the school as well as preparing the lunch for the kids. We are grateful to all of he people at MERCY Pattaya especially Lhen Lhen, Suky and Liz for pulling it all together as well as running the event today.

The party started off with games for the kids and included an egg and spoon race and pin the tail on the donkey - or at least that is what it was supposed to be but there seems to be and acute shortage of donkey posters in Pattaya as well as donkey tails, so as always Lhen Lhen came up with one of her bright ideas of using an item of her son's clothing which had a picture of a monkey on it and using coloured stickers as a tail!

There was then musical chairs which has to been seen done the Thai way to understand it. There was a lunch for the kids of chicken, rice, spaghetti and spaghetti sauce and plenty of soft drink.

At the end of the afternoon all of the kids received a gifts and a bag of food to take home to the family. We had a couple of students missing from our list one of who is sick in hospital with Malaria.















Tuesday 8 January 2013

Lunch and shopping for three brothers

Today at the request of their Hawaiian sponsor we took three brothers 'Dum', 'Book' and 'Kong' along with their social workers for lunch and a shopping trip. The brothers ages 7, 11 and 13 chose to eat in KFC before going to Tesco Lotus to spend the money their sponsor had sent for them for Christmas.

After exploring the toys, sports and clothing sections where they were able to spend the money we ended up by getting a supply of food for the family.

We then returned the boys to the tiny wood and tin shack that they live in with their parents which is located in the middle of a recycling dump.









Saturday 5 January 2013

Boy's day out

Today being Saturday we were free from any Scholarship visits so Boonying an I decided to take three boys out for a day around the shops.

Starting of in Big C where we did a clothes and shoe shop the boys decided (much to our relief) to forego KFC and opted to go to Central Festival Shopping mall for McDonalds where the two older boys ploughed there way through a Double Big Mac and fries whilst the youngest opted for a salad.

We then did a tour of a toy shop but was unable to find the item we were looking for so moved on to the arcade games section of Central Festival where the boys played for an hour. After that it was ice creams all round in Svenson's before realising that one of the boys had left his coat in MacDonalds, fortunately when we returned to look for it it was in the same place he had left it. We then returned the boys back home after a very enjoyable six hours.

My thanks to Boonying for giving up his day off to transport us around and helping to make the day fun for the boys.














Friday 4 January 2013

Lunch and shopping with 'Film'

Today's lunch and shopping trip on behalf of a sponsor was with a delightful tiny 9 year old boy nicknamed 'Film' so along with Suky and Boonying we headed for Tesco Lotus.

'Film' lives deep in the heart of the Khopai slum in appalling conditions. He was abandoned by his parents as a baby and taken in by a couple who obviously care for him a great deal. Unfortunately the 'mother' has a psychiatric problem which results in her collecting any rubbish she sees and the result is that the home is jam-packed full of bags of rubbish and there is very little space to move around inside of the house.

However 'Film' is a very bright, friendly and happy kid who enjoys Maths at school and chose KFC for lunch where he managed to tuck away three pieces of chicken, a coke and half of a custard tart. Top of his shopping list in Tesco Lotus was a Yo Yo. He then chose a remote controlled car and a selection of T-shirts trousers, shoes and underwear. We finished off the shopping trip with a box of Dunkin Donuts for 'mum and dad' before taking him back home.