Birthday shopping trip for two students

  

We were asked to organise a birthday shopping trip by these two students American sponsor.

As you can see from the photographs, Perepat and Patchara were obviously as big a hit with Johnny Depp and the cartoon samurai warrior as they were with Suky!

However, they weren't so much interested in Calvin Klein Jeans as with choosing a very nice watch for each of them - their choice of birthday gift. It's interesting to see the difference in their tastes, isn't it?

Lunch was at Sizzler, where they ate chicken steaks and fries for their main course, and since they also had their choice of soups, pasta, salad and dessert - no complaints at all. Just the thing for growing boys, although they did take some dunkin' doughnuts home for later - to combat the gnawing in the stomach before suppertime, I guess.

They didn't use up all their money, so there is some left in case anything unexpected comes up.

They said they're both enjoying school, and Perepat also enjoys singing - in his own inimitable style.  
 

Registered Charity No. 1104335

100 Years From Today

It will not matter how big your bank account was, the sort of house you lived in, or the kind of car you drove. But the world may be a little better because your help touched the life of one child.

www.slum-kids.org

Hong Kong based sponsors visit their students

On Saturday we picked up Tom  and his partner at their hotel at 9.30am and took them over to BKP to meet our kids - and in particular, Art and Ploy.

Ubie had brought some art supplies from Hong Kong with her, to give her an opportunity to do what she obviously loves - be with children.  She is a natural, and there was lots of opportunity for interaction with them, although I think she and Tom were quite surprised to find how much less time they took to complete their given tasks (Omsin and Garfield excepted) than they had thought - giving us plenty of time for lunch.

They had originally thought to eat with the children, but when we checked the food for the day there was some kind of unappetizing (to us) looking brown vegetable (perhaps because of the vegetarian festival) in the pan, which we couldn't eat - so we decided to go out to Kiss restaurant on Siam Country Club Road, giving them the opportunity to see something of the countryside as we drove. 

Young or old, the children enjoyed fitting their individual packet projects together, although some were a little difficult to finish, as they appeared to have bits missing (or maybe, since they were peeled off a paper back, some of the tiny bits had been overlooked and thrown away).  Never-the-less, we usually were able to sort something out. The glasses, which needed the arms attaching, I sewed on.

The older projects were, obviously, rather more complicated - and clearly basket weaving isn't Lek's strong point, as he eventually gave up, and one of the girls finished it.  They seemed to be bags and baskets and containers of various kinds - lovely bright colours, and practical, as could be seen as they wandered around, very proud of their bags, baskets, visors (Wear was very quick making his) etc.

Of course children always find a way to do something other than use the materials as they were originally intended and all the superfluous sticky bits ended over eyes, mouths and faces, producing very colourful masks. What is it they say about children preferring the wrapping to the present???

After the younger children had woken from their nap, and before they had their afternoon snack, Tom and Ubie gave them their pens (which had a calendar that could be pulled out) and a marshmallow treat, and each child waied and said "Thank You".  It was so sweet.

We finished around 3.00pm and dropped them at their hotel, where they could enjoy a well earned bit of R. & R.

Sunday Tom and Ubie were introduced to Suky, and we walked them over to Royal Garden Plaza for KFC whilst they decided what they wanted to do with the children.  Since we couldn't all get in one vehicle, and as Suky certainly didn't need me around, I opted out,

Suky,Tom and Ubie, after 'suffering' KFC on Sunday (none for Boonying, as he's into vegetarian until the end of the festival), took Art & Ploy to Dairy Queen for a soft, swirly ice cream, which they had dipped in chocolate and sprinkles.

Registered Charity No. 1104335

100 Years From Today

It will not matter how big your bank account was, the sort of house you lived in, or the kind of car you drove. But the world may be a little better because your help touched the life of one child.

www.slum-kids.org

Feeding the kids

Every month Pattaya Street Kids’ Support Project (PSK) pay for a monthly delivery of food to some of our poorest scholarship students and other kids living in the slum of Pattaya to help ease the burden on their families.

The food is delivered for us by Suky and Boonying of MERCY Pattaya and in doing these deliveries it often alerts us to other problems that the families may be facing. If it is a  problem with a child then PSK can often help with the money needed to resolve the difficulty and if it is with adult family members the Suky and Boonying can often offer help through MERCY Pattaya.

In the last six months our food bill for kids we are helping has reached £7000 (350,000Baht) and we expect this to at least double at the end of twelve months. For many of the families we are helping the monthly food delivery is an essential lifeline to help enable them to feed their kids and as in some cases we also pay for snacks at school the food we supply may be the only food that a child eats in a day.

A few months ago a case was reported to us of two sisters who were surviving on scraps of food left over from school meals, fortunately we were able to help out with a monthly food drop but there are probably many other children who are in the same situation but whose families are either to proud or feel ashamed to ask for help.

If you would like to make a donation to help us feed these kids you can do so by using the PayPal donate button on our website or by using any of the other methods shown on this page: http://www.slum-kids.org/sponsorship/how-to-sponsor/

To make sure that you donation is used to buy food simply put the word “Food” as the reference with your donation, your donation can make a difference as to whether a child receives a meal or relies on scraps of food for their daily sustenance

Registered Charity No. 1104335

100 Years From Today

It will not matter how big your bank account was, the sort of house you lived in, or the kind of car you drove. But the world may be a little better because your help touched the life of one child.

www.slum-kids.org

2014 New Year Parties Appeal

It's that time of the year again when we ask if you will think about helping the kids that we are working with in Pattaya to have a special day over the Christmas / New Year holidays.

We are launching our appeal to sponsor a child at one of the parties we will be holding in Pattaya and once again this year we have kept the sponsorship at £2.50 a child.

Attached is the appeal as a PDF file and in this there are a number of photos of the kids we are helping. Below this email there is also an update on the work that we have been doing in Pattaya during the year.

If you would prefer to read the appeal in your web browser you can find it on website here: http://www.slum-kids.org/recent-updates/2014-new-year-parties-appeal/

 We hope that you are able to see you way clear to help us to help these kids have a memorable day.

Registered Charity No. 1104335

100 Years From Today

It will not matter how big your bank account was, the sort of house you lived in, or the kind of car you drove. But the world may be a little better because your help touched the life of one child.

www.slum-kids.org

New bedsheets for the kids at Baan Khong Por

 

There are only so many times that bedsheets can be repaired so when we were asked if we would consider helping with the purchase of new bedsheets for the 34 kids at Baan Khong Por we were happy to be able to meet the cost of 8500Baht (£160...).

After a trip to Ikea and letting the kids choose their own colours for the sheets all of the beds at the home now have new sheets and as you can see from the photos the instruction "keep you room tidy" has the same meaning to kids worldwide!

 

 

Registered Charity No. 1104335

100 Years From Today

It will not matter how big your bank account was, the sort of house you lived in, or the kind of car you drove. But the world may be a little better because your help touched the life of one child.

www.slum-kids.org

 

An update on the year so far.

We are well underway with the planning for the New Year events for the children so this seems a good time to update you with what we have been doing during the year in Pattaya.

As in previous years we have continued to take more children onto our scholarship scheme, although with the current worldwide financial problems we have not had as many sponsors coming onto the scheme, so at the time of writing we do still have a number of children that need sponsoring to enable us to take on more children and give them the opportunity of an education. Details of the children can be seen on our website.

Demands on our food programme have increased during the year as opportunities for employment in Pattaya have fallen, placing many families who were already living in poverty into even greater hardship and unable to feed their kids. Since April our food bill has averaged £1,000 (50,000Baht) a month and we expect that monthly figure to increase during the winter months.

We have started to sponsor a food programme for “Kate’s Project Trust” (KPT) who are working with kids in the slums; we contribute £150 a month for food and water for the kids and also have some of KPT’s children on our scholarship scheme.

We have continued to support the “Share love with a friend” project that supplies severely disabled kids living in the slums with rice and water each month.

Bedding and clothing has also been high on the agenda this year, children’s clothing has substantially increased in cost making it even more difficult for parents to make sure that the kids have warm clothing for the winter.

We have also continued our support at Baan Khong Por children’s home with food, clothes, shoes, and bedding for the kids. I visited the home for two weeks in April and gained a good insight into the needs of the home, I think the days the main water supply stopped functioning and we had to take large empty bottles in the back of a van to try and find a vending machine that sold water brought home the realisation that with thirty children needing showers, daily washing of clothes to be done, water needed for cooking, drinking and the toilets a constant supply of water is absolutely essential.

We also maintained our support for the three-hundred plus kids at the Hauy Phong Children’s Home by paying for sports equipment and clothing.

Unfortunately  due to health issues neither of our lady trustees Kath and Joy will be able to make their usual November visit to Pattaya this year so we will combine the visits they usually make to the various projects with my visit in December and January. They hope to be able to visit early in 2014.

We hope that you will consider supporting our work with the kids, 100% of all money donated is used for the kids, and the charity’s trustees meet all of the administration costs making sure that the kids get the maximum possible benefit from your generosity.
www.slum-kids.org