Help 500 Thai children get an education

Kew, a fourth grader with big round eyes and an immense love for drawing, lives in a small slum community in a run-down house with his mother, younger sister and grandparents. On the wall just outside the door of Kew’s house, they etched a child-like picture into the cement: a man, his arms outstretched, a big smile covering his face. Beside him, in the round Thai script, they wrote, “This house is waiting for Pa.”

Kew’s dad went to prison months ago and his mom found herself trying to scrape enough together to send Kew to school and to find food for her two children. She needed a job and she prayed to God to help her find work. Now, every morning at five, she gets on her motorcycle and drives to work at the local gas station, pumping gas for a few Thai baht.

Even with this job it is not possible to make ends meet and pay for all of Kew’s school needs: a different uniform for each day of the week, school supplies, lunches, transportation, and tuition. But because of your generous gift to Education Matters, Kew gets up every morning, puts on his school uniform and has the privilege to go to school and learn. Maybe someday he’ll get up every morning, a university student.

Your contribution is helping 40 children, much like Kew,  in Isaan, one of the very poorest provinces of Thailand, go to school. As the Thai school comes to a close in March, we are taking the steps necessary to see another whole area open up in the same province for the new school year beginning in May. Your contributions are also helping children in the slum areas of the city of Chiang Mai get the education that they need to break the cycle of poverty.

Links:

• Isaan, very little change over the last 10 years