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

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.

In the last update I mentioned the desire to create some income generating project to help support the families and over the past few weeks, a small group of determined volunteers has been forming to make sure this project comes to fruition.

Ben Viapiana draws the outline of the first sample notebook.

Among the volunteers is Ben Viapiana, who runs a company designing custom jeans in Bangkok. While jeans may be his forte, Ben has a gift for designing and making all sorts of things. Over the weekend he gave the first vocational training workshop to two of the families.

We provided all the materials and Ben taught them book binding, starting with how to make a simple notebook. Other volunteers participated learning the skill along with the families and helping make sure everyone understood and followed the instructions. The result was a few pleather notebooks and a homework task requiring everyone to craft something more difficult before the next workshop.

Book binding 101: A vocational workshop to give craft making skills to vulnerable families.

While the end goal is to eventually generate funds to support the families, there are other important benefits to this sort of project. For instance, the project would provide families with some sort of skill they could take with them once resettled in another country. There’s also the psycho-social benefit of having a sense of purpose and being rallied behind a task that will serve to improve the mental health among these families who aren’t allowed to work to support themselves.

[See more pictures on the In Search of Sanuk Facebook page]

There’s still a long way to go to make this into something that pumps funds into the project, but I’m happy to have moved a few baby steps closer and thankful to everyone working to help us create some sustainability.

-Dwight

Kids and Volunteers Celebrating Completing Their Performing Arts Course

Sponsoring Kids from Poor Communities

We just had seven girls from the Yommorat community finish a dramatherapy course we sponsored with your help. Each of the girls was selected because of their participation in our English teaching project in their community and received full scholarships to the class where they learned to express themselves through the performing arts.

We have a second group of kids from the Pinklao community, still in classes. They’re currently eleven enthusiastic kids (10 girls, 1 boy) attending a beginning English course that we’ve fully sponsored for them through our fundraising efforts.

Next: Later in the year, I want to restart a revamped version of our volunteering project. This time I want to team up with one of Bangkok’s international schools to host the project and partner with us in fundraising. I’m currently working on a proposal to do a pilot project with a small group of kids to see if it’s feasible.

Supporting Vulnerable Families

Still working hard to help families who have little to no source of income or aid. We help nine families with a stipend for rent and occasionally food and social activities (see my last update: An Unlikely Introduction to Asylum Seeking). The families are doing well in general, but there’s still a need for donors who want to sponsor a family monthly.

Next: I would like to setup an income generating project for the families. I’m brainstorming with a talented group of friends who want to help get things going, but still not sure what we’ll come up with.

Fundraising, Fundraising, Fundraising

I’m trying to get it drilled into my brain that fundraising will always be something I’ll need to work at constantly. Still it’s tiring. This month, to get re-energized myself and to get others enthused about the project I’ve begun a food challenge. Basically, I’m vegetarian all month– the same way many families are when they put all their resources toward paying rent and don’t have any money left over for luxuries like meat.

We’re now two weeks into the challenge and eating really interesting foods. Many of which I may never have been exposed without the challenge to change my diet. Read more on the Eating Thai Food, Vegetarian Challenge

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading and comment below or shoot us an email if you have questions or ideas.

-Dwight

P.S. There’s a new facebook page for In Search of Sanuk, where I share pictures and make more regular updates.

I’m thinking of how exactly to explain how I got here. The easiest explanation is to blame everything Ryan, a teenage refugee from China that I posted whose interview I posted when I started this blog. Similar to the family I’m with now, Ryan’s family fled political/religious persecution in their home country. In the old interview Ryan tells how his family fearfully made their way across borders from the south of China into Laos and finally into Bangkok where they thought they could get some help. That’s an overland journey most of us would avoid making even if it was along legitimate routes. They used most of what money they had to get to Bangkok and after arriving found themselves living on the street.

But I didn’t find Ryan’s family on the street. Nor did I know anything about his traumatic background when we met and made friends. These things rarely come up in small talk and I knew him only as the Chinese kid I kept running into at church. I remember thinking he spoke really good English, not knowing that he never finished high school and was using his language skills to support both his parents. It’s only through his friendship that I came to understand what it means to be an asylum seeker.

Asylum Seeking in Laymens’ Terms

In the US if I heard the word ‘asylum’ I’d immediately get the straight jacket–padded walls image in my head, but I’ve learned that an asylum seeker is basically the legal term for most of the people I’ve been helping. In laymen’s terms it refers to someone to who’s fled turmoil in their country to apply for refuge (or help) in another country. They leave their countries in fear and show up in foreign places where they trade in large portion of their fear for uncertainty. They can’t legally work in the new countries, aren’t prepared to deal with language and cultural barriers, and most subsist on aid from charities or religious organizations.

Today I’ve been paying rent for my asylum seeking families and encouraging them to save what they can and track their expenses. In an average month I disperse about $700 worth of rent aid for the ten families we’ve been helping (averages out to about $70 per family— but depending on their situation it may be more or less). The majority of the money comes from what was given over Christmas (note: 60% of those donations were through one person) and will be exhausted after I finish making my rounds this month.

The Need for Regular Donors

As World Refugee Day approaches on the 20th of this month, I hope you will consider helping us care for a family by making a regular donation. Ryan’s story is one that’s fun to tell during this time because he’s now living his dream. After almost five years of struggling to survive in Thailand, his family was sent to the US where he quickly got his GED and is now working and attending college. Their family got a new start because people decided to invest in them long before his hope to live without fear of being arrested or getting an education seemed at all realistic. I’m lucky to have made friends with Ryan and the experience opened my eyes to our chance to make a difference in the lives of many others.

-Dwight

P.S. – Paypal is an easy way to give, but the best way to setup a regular donation is by making a tax deductible gift through 100 Friends. I’ve updated the information on the donation page to make this clearer.

This particular family is one of three with women who have been effectively widowed to Bangkok’s immigration jail (where I’m not really allowed to visit anymore— but that’s another story). As with all ten of the families we help, rent hangs overhead like a foreboding cloud. The cloud increasing in size as the end of the month nears, until the worry it causes is visible on everyone’s demeanor. Volunteers who have visited these families before and after rent is due can testify that the difference is night and day. But we all know what it’s like when bills are due, only most of us never have to consider budgeting in how many days we can go without eating or weigh the advantages of sending our kids to school when the money for transport could be used otherwise. Fortunately, since this past Christmas we have been able to relieve some of the pressure on them. As a result, the families are healthier and the kids are learning more.

I haven’t written about this in a while and I think I should back track some to explain how these families ended up in our care.

Last year’s decision to get involved with helping needy families was a really easy one. The families we chose were particularly vulnerable and dependent on the kindness of NGOs, churches, and strangers. They were clearly not getting enough help and providing $15 food stipends was a cheap, simple solution at the time. So we started there, not expecting the circumstances for these families to get progressively worse.

By the end of 2010 we were supporting about ten families with not only food, but with a stipend for rent also. This was never the original plan, but when their other sources of support dried up, we stepped in. Our help has meant so much to these families. For example, one woman who was suicidal and living on the streets when she encountered Pam (flashback to this blog post), now has a home and hope for her and her sons. The stories are different for each of the families, but in general your help has meant living with a little more dignity and a lot less fear.

But this isn’t only an update to say they’re doing well, I’m also asking for your help to continue what we’ve started. Some of you have asked to know more about the families and how this all got started, so next week I’ll go even further into explaining how I became some sort of jeans and flip-flop wearing social worker (it’s a long story that’s really difficult to make short).

~Dwight

We had the idea to give scholarships to some of the young girls we teach on Saturdays; happily, this idea just happened to coincide with V-Day.  We were more than happy to have all you fine people come experience and learn from a volunteer production of Eve Ensler’s play The Vagina Monologues while simultaneously donating your hard-earned money to some little girls who otherwise would not have this kind of opportunity.  For all of you that missed the event (or any of you men that didn’t come because the Vagina Monologues is a ‘woman-only’ thing), I encourage you to check out this video about rape in the Congo.  I found it immensely sad, but heartening that the women there are trying to take a stand for their rights and their bodies (click here to watch).   

March 8th is International Women’s Day and while we celebrate the triumphs of women today, we also must still recognize how much we have to do to end gender based discrimination and violence. In the communities where we’re teaching women with little to no education work 12 hour shifts doing some kind of menial labor AND raise a family. So to culminate the Saturday teaching project we initiated a year ago in two Bangkok communities we want to jump start the futures of some bright young minds we’ve been working with by giving away scholarships for them to study further.

Luckily, we’re well on our way to making this happen. Your attendance and support helped us raise $1,000 at the showing of The Vagina Monologues and in addition 100 Friends, along with Bangkok Patana School, have pledged another $1,000. That’s enough money to give 17 amazing girls scholarships–11 more than we hoped for!

We’re sending girls from both communities to study English in classes at private language schools. The schools will allow them to further their English education in a fun, professional setting. We hope this not only helps their English ability, but sparks a lifelong desire to keep learning.

We’re sad to see our Sanuk My Saturday project come to an end, but glad we can offer something special to a few of the precious personalities we’ve come across. While we finish our last month of volunteering, we’re also running around getting the girls enrolled and encouraging their families to make sure they are all prepared to begin when the time comes in May.

Thanks to all the people that came out to watch The Vagina Monologues and the all the women who volunteered to perform. Happy International Women’s Day!

-Chris (@Chrislittleone)

PS – We still have more fundraising activities we’re planning in Bangkok, so make sure you connect with us. If you’re not here but want to help sponsor a girl’s scholarship you can click here to donate.



“A baby in these parts can fetch as much as twenty thousand baht ($500)”

I want to start the year by again calling your attention to the situation on the border of Thailand. Friends of mine over at Rubber Knife Productions recently took some time out to do a pro bono documentary there. They chose to tell the story of Children of the Forest, a large project aimed at helping people who live in the lawless land between a war being waged in Burma and Thai immigration check points. This is where many fall victim to trafficking or worse horrors. The documentary they made is about 15 minutes long and I encourage you continue to share it after watching (click here if the video does not appear).

I’m proud we started the year by sending $730 to Children of the Forest on behalf of the Cyril Duncan Siam Children’s Foundation and strongly encourage you give and add COF to your list of deserving organizations.

So things are already on track for a very busy and special year. I’m still getting thanked by the families for the Christmas we game them and I want to continue to pass on that gratitude to you. Thank you! Our work in Bangkok with needy families will continue and we’ll be adding two more families to our list this month (making a total of eleven). More info on them and our ongoing weekend volunteering coming soon.

-Dwight

Photo credit: Brianne Hoyt-Stern

“I can’t think of a better way to do Christmas…”

Looking back, I’m not completely sure how everything happened so smoothly. I have a tendency to dream up these crazy ideas, without having the proper vision to see the details coming together. And perhaps if I saw all the details, I’d give up before I started. So whether that’s an advantage or disadvantage didn’t matter this past weekend because God provided plenty of people ready to dig into the details I overlooked. This was especially true after I was exhausted from calling people, translating and trouble shooting. A few examples are the volunteers that delivered dinner, played with the kids, ordered more food when we ran out (definitely, didn’t plan for that) and watched stunned with me as about 70 ice cream bars brought after dinner evaporated into thin air.

Sound like a big job? Well, Christmas Eve dinner wasn’t the only sanuk-filled activity I conjured up. We also had an dance off in an ice bar that’s five degrees below freezing, an extra special surprise for the young children in these families who all come from tropical countries. Later, I organized an outing for play and picnic in a nearby park. All things I couldn’t have done without backup from volunteers and the go ahead from a few kind local businesses who allowed me to overrun their places with kids.

‎“If it wasn’t for you and your friends we would have been praying and crying tonight. But we’re praying and laughing. My heart is too full of happy. Thank you.”

The families repeatedly expressed their gratitude and let me know what we’ve done will never be forgotten. They did that in different ways: some in tears, some in broken English on cards, others giving me joyful kisses while calling me son. It’s tough to communicate everything this joy filled holiday has meant or to summarize how so many people have come together all over the world to restore Christmas for these few. I have a short video featuring a few volunteers that may help (note: this is my substitute for the Christmas card mashup idea). The video is just a small sampling of the people that were involved, but I hope everyone sees the impact your support has made.

Thank you & Happy New Year,

-Dwight