Refugee Children's Home in Pala'u area

[livelyrich]

Just wanted to let everyone know about a children's home about 1hr drive from HH. Fifty five Karen refugee children from troubled homes live here and are provided with safety, healthy nutrition, education at local Thai schools, and a loving environment in which to grow and flourish. Our goal is to embrace, educate, and empower them to be free from oppression and envisioned to see a brighter future.

There are opportunities for sponsorship and direct interaction with the kids. We conduct English Club once a month at the Home, and we take people out to see the facilities and meet the kids and Karen staff on a regular basis. It is a beautiful drive over the mountains towards the Burmese border into lush 'elephant country.' If you are interested in learning more about how you can become involved with the work for these precious children, please let me know and I will be happy to arrange a trip out.

A number of local people have already taken this unique 'day trip' with us and have found it very rewarding and uplifting, so try a different kind of 'tour' and see how you can become involved while in HH!

[caller]

That's interesting Lively, without wishing in any way to appear a 'voyeur', do you have a link to a website or some photo's to help understand better?

[terry+carmen]

I'm certainly interested in learning more about the Children's Home.
Last year we invited Mercy House children to Somtawin School Christmas Fair, lots of fun for the children with games and prizes.
The Somtawin children collected various gifts and masses of food for Mercy House to take with them.
Let me know more and we can arrange a visit or our Parent Teacher Club.

[moja]

www.karenkids.org

[livelyrich]

Just for clarification, our children have received Thai ID, but are from refugee families with troubled homelives. Although we are in the Pala'u area, we are more specifically just outside Padang, but most people know Pala'u better than Padang. Our organization also has work in the Ratchabiri area.

The website mentioned in one post is not ours, although we know this org and the work they do and appreciate anyone assisting these precious children. We are committed to developing Karen leaders, so we have no 'farang' staff on site at the Children's Home. All farang are volunteers who assist in leadership mentoring, administrative and fund raising roles, but day to day direction is provided solely by Karen personnel.

As I post more topics, I can provide more specific info, but at this point, you can search for our website under Connect3e.

Hope this clears up any confusion I, as a bonafide novice (as I am called! :-), have caused under this thread!

[HHADFan]

Our organization also has work in the Ratchabiri area.

Where? Ratchaburi City? Somewhere else in the province? I know a lot of people in Ratchaburi province, but most of the people I know who aren't Thai, are Mon. A policeman friend helped register 800 of them in my girlfriend's village.

I'm interested because in the areas of Ratchaburi I'm familiar with, the Mon are well known, but I've never heard anyone mention the Karen. I would be happy to visit and support a place helping the Karen. The Mon are well known, well supported, and not (as far as I know) discriminated against much. I only know of the Karen from reading about northern Thailand so would be happy to hear more of these people and why they are in Ratchaburi.

[barrys]

We took up the offer and went to visit the place a couple of days ago.

We were very impressed by the amount of progress that's obviously been made in quite a short period of time, also using natural, local materials and local labour.

And the kids themselves were an absolute delight, playing and working together in their new, safe environment.

They love to get visitors, so I would certainly recommend people to go there and look for themselves.

[livelyrich]

I'm certainly interested in learning more about the Children's Home.
Last year we invited Mercy House children to Somtawin School Christmas Fair, lots of fun for the children with games and prizes.
The Somtawin children collected various gifts and masses of food for Mercy House to take with them.
Let me know more and we can arrange a visit or our Parent Teacher Club.

the best way for you to find out more is to search our website, but i can't put it on here yet as i haven't been on here long enough! just look for connect3e and it will come up on your search engine. or, you can email me directly at rplively @ gmail. com (disregard the spaces, but i also can't put in my email yet) and i'd be happy to dialog with you and meet for coffee or something to discuss possibilities. it would be great to have your PT club see the Home and decide if you would like to become involved in any way.

thanks for your interest and i look forward to hearing from you.

[livelyrich]

Our organization also has work in the Ratchabiri area.

Where? Ratchaburi City? Somewhere else in the province? I know a lot of people in Ratchaburi province, but most of the people I know who aren't Thai, are Mon. A policeman friend helped register 800 of them in my girlfriend's village.

I'm interested because in the areas of Ratchaburi I'm familiar with, the Mon are well known, but I've never heard anyone mention the Karen. I would be happy to visit and support a place helping the Karen. The Mon are well known, well supported, and not (as far as I know) discriminated against much. I only know of the Karen from reading about northern Thailand so would be happy to hear more of these people and why they are in Ratchaburi.

thanks for your Qs; we are in a small village about an hour outside of Ratch, called Hoy Nam Nak, which is about 30 minutes past Suomphong. there are many Karen that keep coming down into this area, and have been for quite awhile. the village where we work has many Karen refugees, some legally registered and some not. they face many challenges, even if they are processed legally. don't really want to get into the details here, but would welcome a mtg with you to discuss further.

our children's home in the village has only been going for a few months. how it happened is quite a story in itself and i'd be happy to share with you if you'd like to meet. i can't post my email yet since i am new to HHAD, but if you take out the spaces, it is rplively @ gmail. com Are you actually in the HH area now?

let me know if you'd like to meet and we'll set up a time/place

[livelyrich]

BIG THANKS to Barry for coming out to the Home and also for offering his boat for a day. the kids from the Home can hardly wait for this Sat to come! they will travel into town and enjoy an amazing day on the big boat, relaxing and swimming and, I am sure, eating lots of food!!

it's great to see local people with big hearts; thanks, Barry and Tan for your generosity and desire to help. it's just so rewarding to reach beyond yourself and impact someone's life for the better...

[livelyrich]

That's interesting Lively, without wishing in any way to appear a 'voyeur', do you have a link to a website or some photo's to help understand better?

you'll have to do a search for connect3e and it will come up; i think i am almost to the pt of being able to list urls in here, but still not quite!!

[livelyrich]

to the HHAD admin, i mean no disrespect by posting my email or our website details by making spaces, but people are asking for info and i don't know how else to get it to them in these replies. i totally understand why you have this restriction and respect it, and think that as of this post it won't be an issue any more!! thanks for providing this format for people to connect here in the HH area.

[Big Boy]

You've cracked the 10 posts now - you have qualified to post your website and e-mail detail.

[Big Boy]

I've been looking at your website, and the kids in the photos look well cared for, and happy. 2 questions please:

- I assuming the white kids are children of volunteers. Is my assumption right?

- With these kids being Karen, I'm assuming that they are not native to the area in which you are caring for them. How do so many parent-less kids find you?

Please be assured that my questions are pure inquisitiveness, and there is no ulterior motive. I would genuinely like to know the answers, especially to the latter question.

[livelyrich]

thanks for the good Qs; appreciate your interest

- yes, those are kids of volunteers; both of our families go out on a regular basis to visit the Home and do different things, including a monthly Eng Club, plus regular mtgs etc, so they do get in the pics quite often!

- most of our contacts come from word of mouth as our director makes trips to different refugee villages, some in the area, some quite far away. or, when people know of a child in need, they will contact him directly and then he speaks to us to make sure we can take care of them. the problem is that there are many more kids who need this kind of help, but we only have the facilities for the current 55 kids, and that is pushing it! last year we had 38 kids, so you can see the increase just from one school year to the next. to clarify, some of the kids are 'actual' orphans, some have only one parent, while others have both parents, but they are incapable of giving them the adequate care and love they need, so that's where we step in. we never take a child away from a family unless we have parental permission and blessing. the reality is that even in instances where both parents are alive, some have been so traumatized by their flight from Burma that they are unable to care for the kids. some of the children have been born here in Thailand, while some actually fled from Burma with their families.

if you'd like more details, i'd be happy to meet you for coffee and a chat some time in town; just let me know...