Provide Education and Hope for Children at Risk

So many cultures, so many celebrations at this time of year. 

One advantage to remote learning is that the children get to go out and run around or make decorations for the various holidays, in between classes. Our staff and children embraced Halloween as volunteers introduced the decorations, face painting, and silly games over the years.

We have our first international volunteers in over a year and they are adding to the schooling with extra English classes and new scary Halloween decorations based on Mexican traditions. 

Meanwhile, life goes on with busy days filled with rotating groups of children to medical, school, and learning activities. Every day we have trips to town for vaccines, as each age group is approved. 

There are still fevers and infections that need a doctor's visit. And then, while school is not open, the high school requires students to come in to pay fees and pick up materials. One unexpected benefit, this week it included a sim card for online study.   

Chiang Mai is slowly starting to open and we were able to schedule some appointments at Rajanagarindra Institute of Child Development (RICD) to have a few of the children evaluated for possible learning disabilities. 

With the varied background of the children, it is not always easy for us to distinguish language limitations (they are learning Thai but they started out with their tribal language)  from learning disabilities or trauma impact.  

Thank you for your continued support!

Evelind

P.S. #GivingTuesday is almost here. We would greatly appreciate your support of our Harnessing the Power of the Sun campaign on November 30. 

We are constantly adapting to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic. The schools have closed on and off all year. With the new spikes in Thailand, the July closing of schools extended through August.

Online class for Grades k-6 has not worked well, so the teachers prepare weekly packets of assignments and deliver to Warm Heart, and exchange with the completed ones. 

Grades 7-12 and university students are all working online. We also have had some success working with remote volunteers, running English conversation sessions with teenagers in India, Thailand, and the US. In addition, our dedicated afterschool tutors, Kru Nuoy and Kru Eid come six days a week to work on Thai language and Math skills.

We are grateful to Building Futures Thailand for our initial Barb's Place Comunity Education Center computers and the recent funding that was available to install an additional 13 computers for our Youth Competency Skills program.  We now have enough computers to cover the various learning shifts the children have scheduled on Zoom.  

Our volunteers include teenage friends in the US and Canada, Alkalka.org, in India, and students from the Verso School in Thailand. We've divided the students into groups by age and gender.  The children all love to sing and the word games get them reading.  They are all very shy about speaking but have been getting better as they work in small groups.

Your gifts go to support our staff, the Children's Home Manager, Mali, and the house mothers, who keep the schedules, make sure over 100 nutritious meals are served daily, along with milk and snacks for always hungry growing children.  They get sleepy teenagers out of bed, fed, and onto schoolwork.  Mali has assigned all our available staff and college students, home due to the pandemic, to work one on one with the elementary school children.  

The children help with the cooking, cleaning, and vegetable gardens.  On the weekends they split into groups to cook healthy snacks for the week (banana bread is a favorite), make practical craft projects like paper bags (not more plastic bags) to deliver supplies to the elderly,  During reading time, the older children read to the younger ones.  And there is always time for a daily game of football/soccer and volleyball.

Thank you for keeping the children learning and thriving!