Education Thailand Project #25098

Help Educate Children Living in Poverty inThailand

by Action Change (Formerly GVI Trust)

Project Report | Jul 17, 2018
Summer Camps and Back to School

By Dora Szabados | Program Manager

Dear Supporters,

In the second quarter of 2018, we faced an interesting time in the community team. In the first month of the quarter, all of the schools were on their summer breaks, including the kindergarten. Therefore we had to find alternative ways to get involved with the community. Once school started again, we were able to work with all of our regular partners, the Community Development Center (CDC), the BNK Thai school, Ban Tham Namchai kindergarten and The Camillian Social Center, working towards SDGs 3 and 4 through English, Healthcare and Life-skills education.

During the entire month of April we hosted English lessons for both advanced and beginner EFL adult students at our partner, the GoSoNo Non-Formal Education Center in Takua Pa, four evenings a week.
Teaching volunteers put together a curriculum and taught lessons to 10 students, improving students’ abilities to introduce themselves, to order food and to negotiate prices among other skills. This targeted SDGs 4, 5 and 8, since many of the students were women, and all could go on to productively use their English education in their employment.

We hosted 3 summer camps in April. The first of these was with the children of the Naval Officers at the Thai Royal Navy Base in Khao Lak, a partner to the conservation project. The students were taught yoga and participated in workshops on healthy eating and dental hygiene, football and volleyball tournaments, as well as an athletic sporting competition.

Community and conservation volunteers also paired up to give workshops on marine conservation to the students and together the students and volunteers completed a massive beach clean, working towards SDGs 11, 13 and 14. The second summer camp was with our partner the CDC. The students took part in a sports day on the beach, and participated in hygiene and healthy eating workshops, SDG 3. The final summer camp was with our partner, Ban Tham Namchai kindergarten, during which the students learnt different English songs and games, and played with
different sensory craft activities.

In the week before the beginning of the school year, the CDC requested that we provide translation and comprehension lessons for the students for 4 mornings, working towards SDGs 4 ad 8 by providing the students with a stronger English foundation for finding future employment. Around 18 students attended the classes, which were taught by community volunteers who chose activities that would test and improve the students’ speaking and listening skills specifically.

As classes began again, we restarted the school garden at the CDC, introducing the students to crop rotation, and improved the infrastructure of the garden during a Friday project to protect the crops from the rainy season. Several new plants are being grown, and the school will be able to benefit from a fruitful garden in a few months, working towards SDGs 2 and 12. The students at the CDC have also been receiving weekly healthcare lessons as part of their education, working towards SDG 3. At the BNK Thai school we discussed with the school the benefits of working with fewer of their students on a more frequent basis, and now work with the youngest three grades 3 days a week, which will vastly improve their English level compared to last year’s 1 hour per week, working towards SDG 4.

We have continued to support the Camillian Social Center on a weekly basis. Their coordinator who was in charge of the center left at the beginning of the quarter and left the center in confusion, and so it is more important than ever that GVI provides structure and service to the center. We have increased our time working at the center from 2 afternoons a week to 3 afternoons a week. We also continually try to introduce the students to new experiences with new games, sensory activities and outdoor experiences, improving their wellbeing in accordance with SDG 3.

We hosted the third annual fun run in Ban Nam Khem to raise funds for the center to buy new physiotherapy equipment and to improve the center’s farm. 56 people participated in the fun run, including 26 local people, and we had runners for both a 10k and a 5k. The students came to the fun run and took part in a 1k walk around the village with the volunteers.

In short, students had an active break while learning about healthy life styles and conservation and practicing their English skills. Everyone is back at school now, taking English classes 3 to 4 times a week. CDC students are learning anatomy in their healthcare class and planting things in their garden. Camillian is planning how best to spend money from the fun run. In the coming months, students will compete in a spelling-bee run by our TEFL intern, and continue classes until the end of the term in early October. Our main focus will to be improving our young beginner curriculum through the use of the Jolly Phonics system. We’ll begin collecting the necessary multi-media resources to give our 4-8 year olds the best education possible.

Thank you so much for all your support!

With Gratitude,

GVI Phang Nga

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Apr 17, 2018
Classroom painting, bio - gardening, and first aid

By Dora Szabados | Program Manager

In the 1st quarter of 2018, we have been busy. We finished off the Thai school year strong and had a couple of short-term interns complete some great projects. We once again worked most closely with The Community Development Center (CDC), by painting their classrooms, organizing first aid workshops and helping them grow their bio-garden!

In addition to our regularly scheduled English, School Garden, and Healthcare classes at CDC, we found time to paint a mural in the halls of the school. In an underfunded school such as the CDC, the children have bare classrooms with few opportunities for peripheral learning. We will continue to steadily build a rich, stimulating environment in which the children can flourish. At the height of growing season here, our school garden finally began to produce results. In our inaugural season we didn’t manage to produce enough food to feed the school, but it was sufficient to thrill students and show that a more organic approach to gardening could be as effective as one reliant on chemical pesticides and fertilizers. We will build up our facilities in the upcoming rainy season, hopefully constructing a structure to protect our crops from the coming storms and use what we have learned this year to increase yields.

We have held a week-long chili-challenge in the second week of January, where the volunteers ate dishes with stronger chilis every day. We managed to raise 145.77 GBP, which will be used to buy new plants, seeds and gardening tools for the CDC.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/gviphangnga

After consulting local community members and officials at the district hospital, we have decided our most immediate and impactful health intervention is teaching community members first-aid. Long term strategies can focus on healthy behaviors such as proper nutrition and avoidance of drugs and alcohol This quarter, a healthcare intern put on a two-day first aid workshop for upper level students at the CDC. The students practiced illness and injury assessment, bandaging, splinting, and slinging.

We have had one-off projects with our partners as well. The GoSoNo Non-Formal Education Center in Takua Pa asked us to help with a 1-week intensive business English class in February. 3 of our volunteers put together 25 hours of English lessons focusing on retail and restaurant English for 20 adult learners. We also began summer vacation in mid-March and put on a 2-day summer camp at Ban Bang Theep school with the help of several conservation volunteers. Activities included sports/exercise, first-aid stations, and arts & crafts. Along with our regular classes at the Ban Nam Khem school, we also helped the older students prepare for their O-NET exam, their version of the O-level exam.

Our second quarter will bring fundraisers to continue to support our three main partners, the Camillian social center, the CDC school and the BTNC Foundation Kindergarten Classes.

Thank you to everyone who has donated to our great cause this quarter, please follow us this coming quarter as well.

All the best,

Team Phang Nga

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Jan 16, 2018
Phang Nga Community Trust update 2017

By Max Bauer | Assistant Base Manager

Dear Supporters,

During GVI Phang Nga’s Q4 of 2017, we spent a lot of time with the Community Development Center in Ban Nam Khem. The CDC, which is run by The New Light Foundation, provides primary, pre-primary, and occupational education to more than 150 Burmese Migrant children in the Takuapa region. As well as providing a free education to marginalized individuals, the CDC operates a “Feeding Center” program, where they provide nutritious meals to disadvantaged students whose families can’t afford to provide them.

The majority of the funds we raised for the CDC this year have gone towards creating larger garden plots for our Agriculture class. We have been holding classes for 4 ½ hours a week, starting in May 2017, with roughly 25 students in grade 7-9 participating. We are currently using the garden as a model for the benefits of chemical-free agriculture. Students are incorporated in all aspects of garden maintenance, from planting to harvest. The garden continues to grow, with 15+ different crops planted and more coming. In the next term, nutrition is incorporated in the lesson plan to assure proper use of crops.

Progress has been slow due to weather restraints and the inconsistent nature of classes in Thailand, but we have completed construction of 10 m²of farmable beds, one large bean trellis and several shade structures in which to grow seedlings. Our harvest has been minimal so far, as it is just coming into the best part of growing season, and seeds from our successful vegetables have been reinvested into our current crops. With continued efforts and inputs, the school garden project will continue to expand and facilitate hands-on-learning for future food-security.

We have also completed several other notable projects with our partners in the last few months. Our most recent TEFL intern Joanna Buckingham Shum, completed a school-wide leadership project at FED. Students were taught about the growing problem with plastic-use and then completed a variety of art projects using plastics that would have been thrown away otherwise. In the same vein, volunteer Olivia Adamson completed a project with CDC children, making canvas bags to replace the ubiquitous plastic sacks.

During the Thai school break in October. An adult English class was organized here in Ban Nam Khem through the Go Soh Noh Adult Education Program. A month-long course was taught by Community Interns and staff members. The focus was conversational English and fluidity. The class has led to one of the students agreeing to teach Thai to the GVI staff, starting in Jan 2018.

In October we taught the first, of what we hope is many, community health workshops. Health volunteer Melanie Raven organized a First Aid workshop that was delivered to CDC staff and youth leaders. The workshop included demonstrations of simple bleeding control, splinting, and several other basic skills. After the demonstrations, all participants were able to practice the skills. At the end, the school was given First Aid kits for their classrooms, some of which were previously lacking.

With Gratitude,

GVI Phang Nga

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