About a year ago a handful of young Thai and English people, were brought together by a shared will to do something different from the normal here in Thailand. We started running English Camps in schools across the country (an English Camp is like a Scout Camp but more fun). Now, one year later, we have run camps for over 10,000 students in over 50 schools across the country.
In countries across the globe the Tsunami was huge news. Hundreds of thousands of people of many nationalities lost their lives and the repercussions of this enormous tragedy will be felt for a long time into the future. The nature of our work enabled us to plan a project which we hoped would bring some happiness to many of the children who lost loved ones, homes and family businesses in the Tsunami.
In order to run the project we needed to raise funds from back home and so we emailed our immediate friends and family. The response was overwhelming. The email got passed around and we raised much more money than we had initially anticipated.
The project was this: We were to run two two-day English Camps in Ban Nam Kaem, one at Ban Nam Kaem School and the other at Ban Muang School. We would then go down to Phuket and run a one-day English Camp at Ban Kaleem School.
Visiting Ban Nam Kaem just two months after the Tsunami made us realise just how catastrophic the waves had been. Cars were lodged in trees, gigantic fishing trawlers were still stuck miles from the coast and there was still mud, sand and rubble everywhere. The place looked like a war zone. Of the 7,000 inhabitants of Ban Nam Kaem 2,000 died in the Tsunami, many of whom were children who attended the local schools where we were to do English Camps.
Unbelievably you could not wish to meet kinder, more positive people. Everyone was so friendly and accommodating two families immediately give up their temporary housing so that we could have a place to stay, and we never had a problem hitching a lift to wherever we wanted to go.
Perhaps the most memorable example of kindness came when myself and another member of our team, wandered into Ban Nam Kaem looking for a place to eat. There were no restaurants left, but a family heard us asking and insisted we joined them for dinner in the ruins of their home they then cleared a table, sat us down and fed us with food that they had prepared for themselves. It was one of the most outstanding acts of generosity that I have ever witnessed. The next day we returned with fans and mattresses for the family.
The many people left homeless by the Tsunami had needed places to live and the Thai military had been drafted in to help build temporary community housing or 'camps'. One of these, Andamai Camp was where we stayed during the trip.
Andamai is basic but comfortable. 50 families share the same community so privacy is at a minimum. Just across the road an army base camp has been set up for soldiers who regularly deliver food parcels and water. A mini playground has been provided for the children and a few of the people had turned their box accommodation into mini shops and basic businesses. Most of these people will not be re-housed this year and it was amazing to see such a collective effort in the face of disaster.
The residents of Andamai were extremely friendly and generous and it was they who made the trip such a success. We repaid their kindness by doing evening activities with all the children in the camp: something that was both rewarding and appreciated.
The school, a good 1 ฝ kilometres from the beach, looked like a bomb site many of the buildings had been destroyed, trucks full of building materials were constantly driving in and out and every roofed area had been turned into a classroom.
Before the trip began it was difficult for us to speculate on how enthusiastic the children would be. An English Camp is all about having fun and on regular English Camps that is what happens. In Ban Nam Kaem, under the circumstances, we had no idea what to expect.
We couldn't have hoped for anything more, the students were fantastic, they threw themselves into every activity with real enthusiasm. Many of them lost friends and family to the Tsunami and yet for that day they were able to forget about their problems and enjoy being children again. It was an exceptionally rewarding experience.
One of our best activities is called the ‘Scavenger Hunt’. To start with we translate a list of objects in their workbooks, such as ‘An Alien’, ‘A Dirty Smelly Sock’ and ‘Beautiful Miss Thailand’ into Thai and then give the students an hour or so to use their imagination and go and find these items. At the end we award points to each group for the best use of imagination.
That afternoon in Ban Nam Kaem School the children rushed around dipping dirty socks into bins to make them smell worse, plastered themselves with powder, made funny ears out of just about anything they could find, and the boys dressed themselves up as girls and pranced around stage pretending to be the most beautiful women in the world. It was probably the best Scavenger hunt we’ve ever done.
In all three schools we were given a very warm welcome by both the teachers and the students. They really enjoyed themselves and the fact that they put so much effort into the activities made our trip so worthwhile. All of our staff who went on the trip will never forget it and I hope that we made as much of an impression on the children as they left on us.
There were so many people who had lost so much in the Tsunami and everyone wanted to tell us about their experiences of what happened. One of the most interesting and upsetting examples came when a few members of our team sat up and chatted to one of the residents in Andamai Camp.
His name was Chaitawat Weewat. He had been a fisherman before the Tsunami had struck. On the 26th December he had been fishing with two friends. When the wave came rushing in they had not had time to escape to the shore. Their boat capsized and he along with one of his colleagues managed to stay afloat even though the wave caused substantial whirlpools, however his other colleague disappeared and has not been seen since. He lost his home and all his possessions in the Tsunami, but most importantly he lost his boat, it wasn't a registered boat and as such the government will not provide him with a new one. Later in our stay he would explain to us excitedly that he had found a new job, picking up litter on the beach, a job that would pay him 200 Baht per day, the equivalent of 3 English pounds.
He was just one of the many people who had lost everything. For him like so many other people it will take years and years to get back on their feet. For all of us who went on the trip we learnt a lot from their amazing attitude in the face in one of humanities worst ever natural disasters.
The generosity of the people who donated to our trip meant that we could extend our efforts down south. Our trip to Ban Nam Kaem, and our experience working with and amongst the victims of the Tsunami gave us invaluable information on who needed help and where. With this information and the left over money we were able to help 5 students in Ban Nam Kaem to finish the last 3 years of their education. Without our help the parents of these students would have been too poor to send their children too school. Unfortunately this is a problem that happens all over Thailand and we at Dragonfly are now committed to raising funds to help as many children as possible. If you would like to make a donation to our cause then we would be severely grateful. If you decide to make a donation please email me: jake@thai-dragonfly.com and I will send you all the details. You can read more about our trip and our other projects at: www.thai-dragonfly.com. |
