Celebrating womanhood with the help of online donors and Newsong Church

This week was special and led up to the celebration of a very special young lady nicknamed Pachi.

Pachi is the youngest daughter of a widow we support with our monthly rent stipend program.

Uncommon where I grew up, it’s tradition in her family to celebrate a woman’s coming of age with close family, friends and more food than anyone can eat. Their cultural traditions aim to recognize and encourage young women by highlighting how treasured they are.

With the help of people who donated online this month and Bangkok’s Newsong Church we extended the celebration with Pachi’s family on Sunday.

"Today we celebrate womanhood..."

When I met Pachi for the first time, two things struck me about her. First, she was a young girl with bright eyes and a beautiful smile. I sat down with her and attempted to read a story with her in basic english. Pachi was about 9 at the time and I quickly realized that while she knew the letters in each word, she could not read any of them.

With the opportunity to study only one day a week, Pachi had never learned to read in English.

Since meeting Pachi the first time, we’ve come to sponsor her family and I put pressure on the family members who could read English to teach her. With the promise of a special reward, I’d always check to see if she had been practicing whenever I visited the family.

Encouraging and celebrating Pachi's womanhood

Today Pachi is no longer the illiterate young girl I met a few years ago and we spent the afternoon celebrating her blossoming into (literate) womanhood.

What would the world be like if young women were valued and celebrated everywhere?

-Dwight

Mustard being slathered on hot dog made with Northern Thai sausage at Big Bite Bangkok

What a great week!

I hope the rest of the year goes as strongly as 2012 started.

Much of the week was spent planning past Saturday’s Big Bite Bangkok, but I did get to spend time with my mentor Marc Gold from the 100 Friends Project.

Marc is a professional at creating smiles

Marc had just returned from helping some terribly desperate communities in the Philippines and went with me to visit a few families we’re supporting in Bangkok. In particular, I wanted to follow up with the woman who had called me after she ran out of food last week.

Together, we spent a few hours chatting with women in two families about their difficulties in Bangkok, managing money, and caring for sick relatives. When our time was up we quietly left, leaving both women with $100 each.

I was glad to have the opportunity to share my work with Marc and we spent a few hours afterwards discussing how to further encourage the women in the families we visited and ways to collaborate in the future. Hanging out with Marc is always encouraging because he has a great deal of helpful input to share from his experience directly helping people and small charities all over Asia.

Starting the year our supporting women with the help of Marc Gold of 100 Friends

Switching to my fundraising hat, we tapped into the city’s foodie community to raise money to continue helping these families more this year.

Sunday launched Big Bite Bangkok with the help about 200 people attendees and 9 vendors with great food. We raised about $850 for our project, which is a great start to the year. We’ll share more pictures and details on the Eating Thai Food Blog later this week if you want to see more food pictures.

Thanks everyone for following and supporting our strong start to 2012!

-Dwight

 Photo credit for the food photos from volunteer photographer Jennica Botonis.

Now I don’t want to seem heartless, but I was a little annoyed when the phone was ringing. I often get calls at random times of the day with random requests. Sometimes it’s the 7am call to say thank you for paying for our rent, a lovely gesture from a few thankful hearts which may drive me INSANE.

I work full time and have my share of a social life, but the nature of caring for people is you can’t really pick your hours. So I always leave my phone on and field calls from families saying everything from, “We miss you,” to the occasional emergency. I’m usually, however, a little happier when they don’t wake me before the roosters.

This week I answered the phone with my ‘what now?‘ attitude only to find out a family had been out of food for a few days.

My heart sank. I shirked the attitude and sent $30, enough to last this family almost two weeks, right away.

Calls like this one really jolt me back to the importance of the work we (me and YOU) are doing together to help families. This is the biggest part of the In Search of Sanuk project and I’m up at 3am writing about it because this year I’m aiming to do more than the $8,000 or so in aid we gave to families in 2011.

To do more for more families in 2012, I’m going to need to stretch myself and this partnership WE have together.

On my end, there will be more nights up late writing updates to share the project with you (some of which are sure to be rewarded with early morning phone calls).

On your end, I’ll need more of what you have to contribute. Whether it’s time, money, prayers or all of the above I’m asking YOU to step up the production this year.

Every month, in commemoration of our partnership, I’ll be updating the following “fun meter” to illustrate how much we’re accomplishing together:

As of January 15th we have given out $1320 in direct aid to the needy. Which means about 87% of what was given went to help families like those you saw in last week’s Children’s Day video report. Awesome! But there’s more to do and we spent about $300 on families I haven’t yet matched with sponsors. In addition to sponsorships we raise money with events like next weekend’s Big Bite Bangkok to cover where the budget falls short.

I hope the monthly “fun meter” encourages more people to visit our donation page and give.

Similar to the sporadic phone calls, I will learn to think these updates not as a shrine to insomnia, but as a privilege and reminder of the change we’re creating in the community. I hope you will too.

Until then, goodnight!

 -Dwight

Saturday afternoon was a great Children’s Day celebration with the Yommarat community.

A pair of awesome volunteers, Pilar and Nicole, organized games and crafts for the kids and about 15 other volunteers who joined.

Watch the video below (Or click here: In Search of Sanuk Children’s Day 2012 in the Yommarat Community)

Volunteers got lots of hands on interaction with the community’s kids, parents, grandparents and passerby’s who heard all the fun we were having.

The highlight for me was being able to help seven families by giving out gift certificates to a local supermarket where they can purchase food and clothing. Actually, we worked with the community to identify ten families who were in need. Since we didn’t have a big enough budget to help everyone, volunteers and I decided to choose the top 3 neediest to sponsor throughout the year. You’ll be hearing more from us about those three families as we get to know them.

Remember your donations will allow us to help them throughout 2012. Make a contribution here.

[Note: See the details on our donation page for US citizens who want to give a tax deductible donation.]

In the next update I’ll describe our fundraising needs for the year and a plan to keep you up to date on how much aid we’re distributing to help families in Bangkok.

What are the biggest needs in your family?

-Dwight

Every year on the second weekend of January, Thailand celebrates Children’s Day. This year we’re making plans to do some activities in the Yommorat community in Bangkok.

[Take a look back at what we've done in the past: Children's Day 2010]

Yommarat is a community full of kids. The majority of the kids who attend our Saturday school are from this neighborhood, but there are many more kids in the community who are unable to attend because we can only accomodate a small number. With the help of volunteers (if you’re interested you can sign up here: Thai Children’s Day 2012) we’ll be bringing some fun activities to the community’s celebration.

Volunteers taking the lead creating kids' activities

In addition, I ‘ve been working on a budget for the year and trying to decide how best to raise the money we need to run our projects. Last year, we planned to host a food market called Big Bite Bangkok, but it was postponed and eventually cancelled because of the flooding. The idea is really to get people excited about food and give them opportunities to give also. This month we’re trying to revive the market and launch it near the end of the month. With enough support this type of event could be really good for our project, because we can reproduce the event again later in the year to keep spreading the word and raising awareness.

Get in touch if you’re looking for volunteer opportunities in Bangkok. We’ll post some fresh pictures from next week’s activities soon and I’m also working on a plan to share this year’s budget and fundraising goals.

How are you setting the tone for 2012 where you are?

-Dwight

In Search of Sanuk Christmas Party

For the second year in a row, we threw a big party for the families we’ve been helping.

[You can flashback to last year's Christmas by watching this video: Stealing Back Christmas 2010]

The aim of the party is really to provide holiday cheer for families who wouldn’t have much of a celebration otherwise. That meant plenty of food and fun festivities for everyone!

Christmas Angels

[See more photos here: In Search of Sanuk Facebook Page]

The party was a great end to a tough year. While fund raising hasn’t been easy, with the help of supporters who sponsored families and those who helped create a few fundraising events, in 2011 we provided over $8,000 in rent stipends to needy families since last Christmas.

This number doesn’t include the extra gifts of food, groceries, clothing and hours spent encouraging and educating families in need this past year. So I’m confident in 2010 our total giving was nearly $10,000, of which 95% went directly to families in our care.

We’re continuing our support into the new year and will be making it easier to see how your donations are making a difference for families in 2012.

We’re so grateful you’ve been following along from around the world. Thanks also to all my local volunteers, especially those who opened their homes on Christmas Eve.

Finally, enormous thanks goes the International Church of Bangkok, who dedicated their Christmas Eve celebration to our cause, raising about $2,000 for our project with asylum seekers.

Happy New Year Everyone,

-Dwight

On the contrary, I don’t have a fraction of the faith the people I’m helping possess.

I’m NOT a NGO. 

There’s no staff, no backup plan, and without the support of a handful of personal friends—no budget.

And I’m definitely not a hero. 

Showing up with food, water and help with rent doesn’t mean I have super powers or even make me particularly intuitive.

I’m a lot like you. 

I don’t fit so easily into people’s boxes and grow tired of explaining why. I love wearing lots of hats, but I’m truthfully not as good at multitasking as I’d have people believe. And I make things complicated because I so highly value simplicity. Hence, why I’m so stubborn and hate asking for help.

Luckily for my endless limitations, my talented friend Tara Milutis has created a touching mini-documentary to help explain what In Search of Sanuk is all about and why I need your help share and give in support of my project to help at risk families.

Please watch below or access it here: In Search of Sanuk Documentary – Helping At Risk Families in Bangkok

-Dwight

Later we gave a few select kids a special opportunity to take language and drama courses at tutoring centers. Finally, we’ve been working in partnership with KIS International School and have been benefitting from the best of both worlds.

End of the year Saturday School Pool Party

The kids get the attention and support they need to learn, from teens and teachers who volunteer from the school, without the huge expense we incurred from the private programs.

If you’ve missed the updates about our Saturday program, you can catch a quick glimpse of what we’ve been doing on our In Search of Sanuk facebook page. 

Finally the year end close to this project has come and we decided to celebrate with a pool party. Odd only because a few weeks before, several of the kids evacuated their homes not long before they were flooded. So in addition to celebrating the completion of the first stretch of Saturday School, there was a need to de-stress by being rowdy in the pool.

Flood Frustration Free and Being Rowdy in the Pool

It worked and flood frustrations were quickly forgotten.

Thanks KIS International and all the teachers and volunteer students who made the program happen by giving time, support, facilities and supplies.

Thank You Card from our Kids & Volunteers!

Here’s a photo the volunteers helped the kids to create to say thanks to everyone who gave to support food for lunch.

Finally thanks to Bangkok Patana School, who found out what we were doing and gave a donation to help us cover transportation for all the kids.

We’re hoping to get things going again in the new year. Until then, thanks all and look for the next update about getting more support for the families we help.

-Dwight

All photos compliments of volunteer photographer Pooja Kishnani (click here to see more photos from our party).

Playtime or Study time? I can't tell.

September has been an exciting month. Here’s a quick update some photos of our projects.

• We launched our new Saturday School which takes kids from the communities we’re working in to KIS International School to study with high school students who volunteer their time. There are some photos below and you can find more details in the last update.
• We’re still supporting about 8 vulnerable families with rent stipends and some volunteers are also helping with food and hygiene items. Great news, I recently heard from another international school in Bangkok who wants to get involved and has already done some fund raising for us.
• Volunteers working with our Livelihood Project to teach book binding skills to poor families are working on making notebooks we could possibly sell at a future fundraiser. We want to make sure the items are really good quality and include a story about how they’re made and what our project does.
• Friends and volunteers recently organized a pool party for some of the kids we’re helping. Thanks to everyone who helped! I’m really grateful and impressed because they organized (including covering the cost of food and transportation) and the kids had such a blast.
• Our next big fund raiser in Bangkok is a food market called Big Bite Bangkok and it’s happening on October 16th, World Food Day.

Taking an ice cream break from a great day at the pool.

Being brave and smiling big on his first time going swimming.

Having fun in the KIS library after practicing their reading.

Reading with a rugrat.

Today was the first day of our new volunteering project with high school students from KIS International School. KIS has allowed us to start a pilot project where we’re taking 15 kids who participated in our scholarship program to their campus for a few hours of study and play. The project will run almost every Saturday for about 10 weeks until the school’s winter holiday.

The school’s campus has a comfy library that we’re using and large play spaces for the kids to run around when it’s time to play. This is truly a world away from what most of the kids are used to in the communities where they’re growing up. They’ve also had many of their elementary school teachers volunteer to help put together the curricula we’re using.

The program focuses on English literacy and the kids work in small groups with the high school students, teachers, and few regular volunteers. All the students have been grouped according to ability and the volunteers track their performance each week to see the progression in their language competency.

[Visit the In Search of Sanuk Facebook Page for more photos]

If things continue to go well, I’m hoping there will be an opportunity to expand the project and make it available for more kids. For now I’m happy the school has been so supportive of what we’re doing and excited for the kids we’ll be planning more fun Saturdays for.

-Dwight