Help Sexworkers in Thailand find a new life!

Greetings from Thailand to you all! Thank you for your support of Tamar Center in the last months! We had a great but also busy start to the new year. Here are a couple of highlights from this year so far:

-          We finished the Tamar New Building project and completely opened. Our Hospitality Center is open, is welcoming guest, and training women in the different jobs like Reception, Laundry, Housekeeper (Maid) and more.

-          The Tamar Restaurant is finally open and welcomes guests. We had a long waiting time earlier this year, as the delivery of the glass for the front of the building was delayed and delayed but finally was installed in early March. Since than we have finished decorating the Restaurant and opened it up and are training new women to work their and serve the customers.

-          We had a big Valentine’s Day Outreach and distributed 800 gift bags and roses to the women working in the bars.

-          Two days after the Valentine’s Day Outreach we had a party in a local Hotel where 43 women from the bars attended. We shared with them about our vocational Training and other ways that we can help them to find a way out of their current situation

-          We started the 23^rd Tamar Vocational and Life Training. Seven women from the bars joined this five-month long training and are currently learning the basics of hairdressing, cooking, baking, sewing and working in the Hospitality Industry

-          We went with all the children and everyone from Tamar on an outing and visited the biggest waterpark in Thailand. Everyone had a blast and enjoyed the many slides and the foam party.

-          We received three teams with Volunteers from around the world that helped us in our daily English classes and outreaches to the bars

-          Our baker is currently doing a five-month long special baking training at the Dusit Thani College to improve her skills and also for her to learn how to train. She will start training some of our new women in baking as soon as her training is finished.

As you can see, we have been busy. It is so good to finally be open in all areas again and to be able to go back to our normal form of ministry and work. It is also good to have finally finished the renovations of our new building and to transitioning from project mode into normal operations. We are all a bit tired and are looking forward to the Songkran (Thai New Year Break) that is happening right now when you read this update.

But even though we have been busy we are also very glad about the many contacts with new women we could make in the redlight districts of Pattaya and are especially thankful for the seven women that left the bars to join our training program.

Thank you for your support and your faithfulness in enabling us to do our jobs here for the women in Pattaya.

 For the Tamar Family

Merry Christmas from everyone at Tamar to you all!

Last week we had a series of Christmas parties, which started with the Soi 6 Christmas Party, and earlier this week we enjoyed our big Christmas Outreach and distributed one thousand gifts bags in the bars of Pattaya and last night we celebrated our internal Christmas Party. Today we are slowly winding the year down and are getting ready for our break. Looking back, it has been a challenging year. We are thankful that our new building is, except of some small touches, finally finished! We are looking forward to re-open the Tamar Restaurant in January and to start the Palm Center (Counseling Center) and Tamar Hospitality in January with guests already booked from the middle of the month. We are grateful for many great outreaches and trainings that happened throughout the year, for a sizable number of women leaving the bars, moving into our houses, and starting vocational trainings but are also sad that some women left us this year. We are happy with Planin, who started a baking course at the Dusit Thani College this year and Jeab, who has just finished working with us and will start her own business in January very close to us. We are also grateful that our children successfully made the transition from online school back to normal school again and that all pandemic restrictions have been lifted.

We are also very grateful to you for your support and your help in this last year. You helped us keep going, you helped to finance many of our projects and distributions and your notes of encouragement have made us smile and brought new strength. We could have not done it without you! Thank you!

Peace is an important word this year. We wish for peace on earth, especially when we look towards the war in Ukraine. But not only in Ukraine, we wish for peace in our relationships with friends and family and now because of the pandemic, we wish for our peaceful life to be “back to normal.”  But do we find the peace that we are looking for? Unfortunately, we find it less and less. We hope that this Christmas season will be a time for all of us to reflect on the last year, to center ourselves and to gather strength for 2023 so that we will be able to have and bring peace to the world.

In this sense we wish you a peaceful and contemplative Christmas, carefree holidays, good health, and God’s blessings for the year 2023. We are deeply grateful for your help, support, and friendship for us here at Tamar Center!

For the Tamar Family