Flooding in Thailand
Since July 2011, more than a third of Thailand’s provinces have been hit by the country’s worst flooding in decades. With over 350 people killed, the SOS Childern's Village Bangpoo, Bangkok is now on high-alert. The Village is home to 120 children who would otherwise have no one.
Find out how you can help us support even more vulnerable children.
Overview of Thailand
The Kingdom of Thailand, formerly known as Siam, lies in the heart of South-East Asia.
It is a country in transition, moving from an agricultural to an industrial-based economy. However, due to the uneven distribution of wealth, environmental degradation and the effects of urbanisation, large disparities in socio-economic welfare remain. Much of the population, particularly in the countryside, lives in extreme poverty.
Over 6 million people live in the capital Bangkok, the most densely populated area in the country. Many are migrants from rural areas, living in appalling conditions in the city's teeming slums. HIV/AIDS is a serious issue because of the large-scale sex industry, which flourishes in the city. UNICEF estimates that around 290,000 children have been orphaned by the HIV epidemic, and a further 2,000 are born with the disease each year. In total, UNICEF puts the number of vulnerable children in Thailand at more than 1 million, including orphans, street children and children with disabilities.
Our Work in Thailand
SOS Children began its work in the country in 1972. SOS Children provide orphaned and abandoned children in Thailand with a new mother, a family and a home where they can stay until they are ready for independent life. We currently care for more than 450 children at our five purpose-built SOS Children's Villages in the country. A further 55 youths are supported in three SOS Youth Homes, where young adults live while they prepare for independence. SOS Children also run nursery schools in Thailand which together serve 330 children from the Villages as well as the local community.
Bangpoo
The SOS Children's Village
Bangpoo (Bangkok) was the first to be built in the country in 1972. The Village is located in Thailand’s capital city which is the largest city in the country. It has 12 family houses (each house can home 10 children) and an SOS Nursery. The older children attend the local primary and secondary schools which are located directly opposite the SOS Children's Village. There is an SOS Youth Home only 12km from the Village with facilities for 20 young people. The home is close to the city centre, an ideal location as the young adults can easily attend the colleges and vocational schools nearby. The youths are also given a monthly budget for running the house, helping them to learn how to control finances and live with a limited income. An SOS Youth Home is a step towards independent living for youngsters, helping them towards becoming self-reliant. In 2002, an SOS Vocational Training Centre for mothers and staff was opened at Bangpoo, providing workshops to enable them to share their experiences and training to help improve their skills.
Hatyai
In 1990, we built a community in
Hatyai, near to the Malaysian border. Hatyai is the main city in the south and a large commercial centre. The SOS Village is built on the site of a former rubber plantation approximately 20km outside the city on the main road to Malaysia. It has 12 family houses and a large nursery. In 1993, an SOS Youth Centre was opened. Children usually move out of the Village and into a
youth centre when they start a vocational training course or go on to higher education. With the support of qualified youth workers, the young people develop realistic perspectives for their future, learn to shoulder responsibility and increasingly make their own decisions. They are encouraged to develop team spirit and build up contacts with relatives and friends, as well as with the relevant authorities and potential employers.
Nongkhai
The third SOS Village is in the provincial capital of
Nongkhai on the river Mekong on the northern border with Laos, a mainly agricultural area. The Village, which opened in 1994, has 11 family houses built in the traditional local style and is situated close to the city's modern government district. The Village has a nursery with 3 group rooms and a library, providing day care for 70 children. The staff organise educational visits for the children to local museums as well as community events such as festival celebrations. The charity has built a youth home for females on the Village site and two houses for male youths in downtown Nongkhai. Youth homes provide the older children with the support and training to gradually make the transition to independence.
Chiang Rai
In December 2006 a fourth SOS Village was opened in
Chiang Rai, one of Thailand’s poorest provinces close to the northern borders with Myanmar (Burma) and Laos. A hospital, a market, schools, a college and a university are all within a radius of approximately 12km from the Village. The community has 14 family houses and a nursery school with the capacity to provide day care for 100 children. For poor families, and especially for single mothers, this service enables them to go out to work and provide for their children, helping families to stay together.
Phuket
On the morning of 26 December 2004, a tsunami struck coastal areas around the Indian Ocean. The sea surge was caused by an earthquake off the coast of Banda Aceh,
Indonesia. It left more than 280,000 people dead. From the first day on, SOS Children's Villages ran emergency relief programmes. At the beginning the focus was on providing medical care, food and shelter to the victims. The next step was trying to locate surviving relatives of children and determining whether they were able to take care of the children. It was decided to build a new SOS Children's Village for children who had lost all their relatives. Therefore, the fifth SOS Village in Thailand was opened in
Phuket in 2008. The community was established to help children in the southern region, particularly children who had lost their families in the Tsunami disaster. The goal is to create a protective environment for affected children where they can grow up with their mental, emotional and physical health safeguarded. The Village is approximately 6km from the town centre and 5km from the beach. It has 12 family houses with the capacity to provide a home to 120 children. The Village has a community centre, which offers medical treatment for the community. There is also a nursery school for up to 75 children. The building includes a multi-purpose hall that can be used by the nursery and for functions involving the whole community. The nursery is open to children from the SOS Children's Village and from the neighbourhood, enabling the children to integrate with the wider community surrounding the Village.
Life in SOS Children's Village Thailand: Amena Smiles Again
Amena lived happily with her husband and three children till the killer waves of the Tsunami destroyed her house completely. The Tsunami changed Amena's life - the once happy family was left with nothing. However, with Amena's own efforts and the support given by SOS Children's Villages Thailand, today Amena is resettled.
Amena lives with her husband and three children in Ban Kluay Nok, Ranong province, in Thailand. The Muslim village is on the bank of a small canal with a mangrove forest near the mouth of the Andaman Sea. The giant Tsunami waves completely destroyed Amena's house, but fortunately her family survived.
Since the village lies deep in the forest, it was very difficult for the rescue units and emergency relief units to enter the community. Amena and her family were struck in the mangrove forest and lived without food and shelter for a week. Finally, emergency relief units came to the area and the family were relocated in a temporary shelter.
"After losing everything - my house, boats and fishing nets, I felt like giving up my life. But every time I looked in my children's eyes I got encouragement to move ahead in life," Amena says. The family needed support to survive and rebuild their lives. SOS Children's Villages Thailand donated boats and fishing tools to help them to begin their livelihood.
Amena also began to work as a casual labourer. She saved some money and opened a small grocery shop opposite her new permanent house donated by SOS Children.
Finally, there is a smile on Amena's face. Every evening her children stand outside their new house and wait for their father to return home. They know that they will see their father with his new fishing tools coming back home to have dinner.
Local contact
SOS Children's Villages of Thailand
18 Moo 3,
Soi Boonsiri
Sukumvit Road
10270 Samutprakarn
Thailand
Tel: +662/380 46 82
Fax: +662/756 20 29
e-mail: mail@sos-thailand.org
This year, National Children’s Day falls on 14 January 2012. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra earlier offered a slogan for Children’s Day 2012: “Unity, Knowledge, Wisdom, Preserving Thai Identity, and Learning Technology.”