At the Senarangsang School we were met by the school Headmaster Manit Rattanapunthkool and Teacher Khru Sothana. This school itself was not affected by the Tsunami, but many parents of the students had passed away during this disaster. Our nine students are orphans but they came with their aunts, grandpas, great-grandmas or uncles, all looking very lovely and contented.

We treated our students and joined them for lunch.

One of our scholarship students, Khun Athitaya came with her great-grandma who has to also look after two other great-grandchildren. At the end of the presentation we all watched amazed as five people rode off on just the one motorcycle, driven by a friend.

Besides the scholarships, Sukanya and Arunee gave each of our students pink envelopes containing some money.

Fumiko and Pattama gave students and teachers beautiful blankets.

It was a nice occasion to be able to meet our students, whom we have all worked so hard to help in our club’s fund raising events. Meeting our students and their families puts our hard work into a reality and reinforces why we need to be with and help the young women in Thailand.  

We then drove for another three hours to the village of “Baan Talay Nork”.

Baan Talay Nork

Quote from Khun Arunee:“My husband Giacomo Mauri and I have being going to help the villagers since the onset of the tsunami disaster. More than half of the villages' population and homes were destroyed. We have continued for the last four years, to visit and follow up on the work we had started in this village.

What we did was to first help build up a temporary school for the primary students, fishing boats for the men, and create an alternative income for the women, by helping them to sell their soaps. Giacomo built three western toilets for the villagers and I concentrated on mainly getting the villagers to want to learn to read and write, especially for the adults who had never had any schooling, and to encourage the teenagers that did not want to continue their education once their primary school was rebuilt. I am very happy to see that we now have many students.

After many thoughts and much discussion the "Scholarship for New Life" (this name is the correct name) will now continue to sponsor existing and new female applicants to college level. After this it will be to sponsor boys to high school level.

I must say that I am proud of the SI-Dusit members who made the trip down there and to spend their weekend and own pocket money to give encouragement to our scholarship students. Seeing them made a difference to me and I think the same for them. I am sentimental as all who were on the trip know. May the good you do come back to you manifold”. (end of quote).

Before we arrived at Baan Talae Nork, we had been given a list of students by Ms. Darunee Pakdee who acts as our coordinator and is also one of our scholarship students studying at university level.

She has done an excellent job liasing with us as well as having her house become the center of study and the center of our “Scholarship for New Life”.

     

Supporting our scholarship students, as well as the whole village of Baan Talae Nork since the Tsunami, which was completely devastated in our southern provinces, Arunee and Jack have helped the villagers build toilets, and helped them to develop occupations i.e. making soaps and trying to find a market for them.

One of the most important things that Arunee has done is that she has tried to persuade the villagers to study and to be able to read and write by building a simple area for them to study. She also talked to people responsible for Kor Sor Nor “Education outside Regular System” to come to Baan Talae Nork to teach. Currently, there are two teachers who come to teach at the village every week.

As our aim and motto was to raise the status of women, our students at this village are different from our current young students. In this village 11 of our scholarship students are men and 10 are women who are married and have children.

 

The ages range from 17 – 44 years. We think that in promoting the status of women, including those women who are already married, still wanting to learn, fits our goal. For those male adult students they are now eager to learn and are asking Arunee to continue their scholarships for them.

In total President Kathy and PP Arunee handed out Baht  29,294 in scholarships (being Baht 12,652 for students mentioned above plus Baht 15,000 for Darunee and Baht 1,642 two male students who already graduated). We also interviewed six new female students but we decided not to add any new male students to this project.

In conclusion, we all think that they are all deserved to receive our scholarships. Arunee also recommended that Ms. Tuangpom and Ms. Napaporn study in the local community college which is not so far for commuting.  This will enable them to go to their studies over the weekend and allow them to stay at home instead of having to leave their homes for other provinces.

We treated our current and new students for breakfast. This area is famous for its southern chicken rice. Blankets were also gifted to all our students.

It was a worthwhile and good trip especially enabling us to meet our students and to see first hand all the wonderful work that PP Arunee and Mr. Jack Mauri have done to improve the livelihood of this lucky Baan Talae Nork Village.

Prepared by Pattama Triyakul.

An added note from President Kathy:

This was my first experience to visit this part of Southern Thailand.  The villagers at Baan Talay Nork were all Muslim, and the feeling in the community was amazing.  They have set up a ‘home-stay’ industry with quite a few of the homes taking turns to accommodate visitors.  The homes are very clean, and they serve breakfast and dinner. This new village industry is allowing them an income of 300,000 Baht a year.

They have also set up a micro-banking system with this money to help others to create new incomes for their families.

Anyone in a position of power is voted for, every year.  Darunee (K. Cha) had been voted as the liaison person for our scholarships.  The head man of the village  for the last 4 years, has decided to retire from his position this year, and so someone else will have to be responsible for the village.  He commented that it takes a lot of responsibility and hard work.  Women and men are all involved with the running of the village and their politics. 

At first it seemed strange giving money to grown men to help them to continue to learn to read and write. Then, however, one man got up after the scholarship presentation.  He was 41 years old and had tears in his eyes. He thanked Khun Arunee and our club for continuing with the scholarships: "You have given me the chance to move my life forward”, he told us.

Yes…we also felt emotional and honoured to know that this village had been given a second chance to start a new life together after such a major tragedy.

We are all part of this of life, for which there is so much for us to learn from. Visiting, traveling and contacting our students has been a small part of this journey.