Help Keep Families Together

Last Week Six New At-Risk Families in Bangkok's Largest Slum Enjoyed Christmas Celebrations Together.

Many families in Klong Toey community have little opportunity for celebrations of holidays like Christmas due poverty. This year these new members of Keeping Families Together (KFT) had much to celebrate as they joined the fun in the Christmas festivities hosted for them. 

But families in our program don't just enjoy periodic celebrations, they join others in their community on a track over 18 months that ensures they step ahead though economic, and educational development inputs combined with mentoring and training tailored just for them.

We stand with those in Bangkok, Southern Thailand, and and the Northeast of Thailand because 70 Percent of Children in Institutional Care in Thailand are Not There Because they are Orphans,

Rather Because of Poverty.

There is an orphanage crisis in Thailand today with provinces like Chiangmai operating over 500 orphanages. Seventy percent of children in orphanages actually have family; but sadly, poverty forces these families to place their children in orphanages.

Keeping  Families Together (KFT) and child development centers mobilize the local church and community to support families through holistic development trainings, income generation assistance, educational opportunities, psychosocial support, health care, and spiritual transformation.

At a fraction of the cost of supporting a child in an orphanage, Step Ahead is able to support at-risk families.

Thanks for your support to make a way for children to stay in their families and local communities.

Life in Bangkok's largest slum community is no picnic. As you walk through the footpaths winding around two square kilometers and home to over 100,000 people, you see many aunties and grandmothers struggling hard to help the little ones that have fallen to their care. Now, Step Ahead's Keeping Families Together program is with them in Bangkok's Klong Toey slum community.

The UN states that 80 percent of children are placed in residential care because of poverty. Our research in Thailand shows over 70 percent of children in Thai residential homes have family, but they were too poor to care for the children.

Why not help keep kids in families, rather than see them keep going to orphanages? Further, it is at least 8 times more to care for a child in an orphanage than in a family. Keeping Families Together can stop many from entering residential care centers to begin with, but we need your help.

Step Ahead's KFT mobilizes the local church and community to support families through holistic development trainings, income generation assistance, educational opportunities, psychosocial support, health care, and spiritual transformation.

Thanks for your support to help some of Bangkok's most at-risk families step ahead today!