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