Help Sexworkers in Thailand find a new life!

Hello everyone and greetings from Pattaya!

We are very happy today to update you about the things that have been happening in the last months here at Tamar Center. The biggest thing is that at the beginning of May we started our Vocational and Life Training for this year. This three-month long training equips the new women with all that they need to re-enter the workforce. We have currently six women in our program: two decided to learn baking, two cooking and Barista, one Housekeeping and Reception for Hotels and one Hairdressing.

The women are going through an intense time of Training right now and we have another month to go before the will graduate at the beginning of August. So far, they are doing well. It is very nice to see them grow, to see them enjoying the Training and also to see them wrestle during the Life training with the topics ranging from managing finances, to family relationships, to how to honor your parents, how to be a good mother to your children and much much more. It is exciting to see the women grow and we look forward to them graduating soon!

We are also very happy that we were able to sign a MOU with Hard Rock Hotel in Pattaya. With this MOU, Hard Rock Hotel has agreed to take all the women from us for paid internships. This is not only a great chance for the women to practice their new skills in a the “real world” but also on their resumes it will look very good!

In the middle of June, we were able to take a new woman into our care. She came to us sixteen weeks pregnant and the Bar where she used to work fired her because of it. She had nowhere to go and heard from someone about Tamar, contacted us, and has moved in with our other women. We send her directly for a medical check up and she and the baby are doing well. Our women are looking forward to having a new baby in our care in the near future!!!

Another special thing was that we were able to take our whole team to the cinema at the end of June. Most of them had never been and especially the children watched very concentrated and really enjoyed the movie – How to Train your Dragon. Now, they talk only about Dragons, but that is okay!

Looking into the future, in just two weeks we are taking for the first time four of our Thai Leaders on a trip to Chiang Mai to attend the Asia Region Anti Trafficking Conference with us. There will be around 350 people attending this conference and together we will have a look at the current situation, network and hopefully built new partnerships to tackle the sadly growing issue of Human Trafficking in our area of the world. We look forward to seeing how our women will react to this Conference, and we hope that it will open their eyes.

Thank you for your continued support of Tamar Center and the work that we are doing for the women here in Pattaya. Thank you, that you are standing with us, especially in difficult times like this, it is a huge help to have you with us! Grateful for your support!

For the Tamar Family

Hello everyone!

Thank you for your support over the last months. We are incredibly grateful for your commitment and your faithfulness in helping us reach the women in Pattaya. In the last months we have had many highlights and today we would like to share some of them briefly with you:

-            We had a great Valentine’s Outreach where we were able to distribute 1500 roses and Valentine gift bags to the women working in the sex industry in Pattaya. Many women contacted us afterwards and we were able to help some of them to start a new life already.

-            We had a great outing with all the women and children staying with us to a fun park in Bangkok. We chose a day before the school exams started and everyone enjoyed a day of fun in between studying for the exams.

-            Now that we have school holidays, we were able to get a new trampoline and some other things for our Nursery and we also were able thanks to some donations to upgrade one our houses to have a nice meeting place with big couch, projector and other things so that the women and children can enjoy movies, play boardgames etc. to relax better

-            We got new aprons for everyone at Tamar. They women requested a distinctive design, and we were able to find it and them done and now everyone looks really good all the time!

-            Our bakery had some busy first months of the year. Our orders have increased and the skills of our bakers as well. You can see in the pictures a special coconut cake that we have now have to the menu. It takes two days to make but it looks really special, and we are getting a lot of good feedback for it.

-            We are also getting ready for the next three-month long Tamar Vocational and Life Training. So far, we have six women confirmed who will take part in the training and will learn new vocational skills.

-            Through our outreaches and English classes, we are reaching daily new women in Pattaya. It seems that sadly every day, new women are arriving, some of them with wrong promises, etc. Most of them are coming because of economic hardships and are trying to make a lot of money fast. As you can imagine, that hardly works for everyone, and many are getting traumatized and are not ready for the work that they are supposed to do in the bars. We are here for these women and helping them with vocational training to find good jobs.

-            Our group counseling sessions have been focused for the first part of the year on goal setting and how the women can make realistic goals for themselves. We encourage them to think and plan and follow realistic goals. It has been good and some of them have made real progress.

-            We are also thankful for many Volunteers and Teams that visited us already this year and helped with different tasks and trainings.

As you can see, we have been busy and are looking forward to the next months. In April we first have the Thai New Year – Songkran – holiday and in early May we start the Tamar Training. Right now, we are busy preparing for this, arranging the different teachers for the vocational training options and much more.

Thank you for standing behind us. For more detailed info and regular updates you can follow us as well on Facebook.

Grateful for your support and help!