Empowering Youth Through Higher Education

We celebrated our 16th anniversary with a "Sweet Sixteen" Party in Chiang Mai, which included our Warm Heart graduates, staff, and community partners who have joined us on this wonderful journey.

Mali, our Children's Home Manager put out the word to our network of Warm Heart graduates, inviting them to join us for our 16th Anniversary Celebrations. 

They came from the mountains, Europe, and around Chiang Mai - in person or in short videos (see below for the link to our 16th Anniversary Celebration web page of videos and photos.) We brought the children and staff from our children's home, giving everyone a night off from cooking.  

We had 14 graduates join us.  Wipope has gone back to his mountain village and started a coffee business - he has a line of great coffee that he sells in Chiang Mai and enjoys having his own coffee shop looking out over the mountain vistas near Chiang Dao. 

His sister, Busaba, sent us a video from her senior year in high school near Vieng Hang, to say she is thriving and plans to study accounting when she graduates. Our vocational high school, college, and university students took a break from Nursing School, studying retail marketing, mechanics, and computers

Nit traveled the farthest, arriving just in time, back from Europe with a master's degree in social work from the Erasmus University Program. 

Our staff enjoyed the delight of the younger children amidst the glitter of the hotel.  The middle school and high school students loved visiting with our graduates, finding mentors, and checking out options for future careers. We all agreed that we would come to visit them at their universities and see where they work.

Thanks to our friends at the Shangri-La Hotel in Chiang Mai, we had a great venue and delicious food at a manageable cost.  Our US Board members donated funds to cover our staff and the children from the Children's Home. 

Our guests and friends covered our other costs; generous raffle and silent auction donations helped us raise funds for our Higher Education Fund.

We celebrated with some of the organizations that have joined us in programs to bring education, health, and brighter futures to our marginalized communities. "It takes a village" to raise a child and we have been blessed with great partners over the years in Chiang Mai.

Thank you all for continuing to make this possible.

Best wishes for the coming months!

Dana, Michael, Evelind, and the Warm Heart Family

Links:

• Our Sweet 16 Celebration - Graduates, Programs and Joy