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

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

The kids in our scholarship program have finally finished all their classes.

After spending two years working in the communities, we ended our volunteer project and decided to select kids to send to private tutoring. In particular, we focused on girls, providing tutoring scholarships for 17 girls and 1 boy. They’ve all finally finished their coursework.

In Bangkok, private tutoring is a norm for middle and upper class families. Parents send their kids to classes in all sorts of subjects, but many spend hours learning English. We had both a group doing a beginning English course and group of girls we sent to singing, acting and dancing classes.

Access to extra opportunities to learn are not normally accessible to children from poor families. One example is a girl named Om, whose report card is pictured below. Despite being one from one of the poorest families and only attending 10 out of 15 of the classes because of having to care for younger siblings (which is a miracle in itself), Om showed plenty of aptitude and out performed many of the other kids. There are many others like Om. Beyond book knowledge, I hope through these classes we’ve instilled confidence and the desire to learn despite the challenges they must overcome everyday at home.

Om, a girl from a really poor family shows promising results.

I’m proud we were able to expose the kids like Om to more than what they’re getting in government schools. However, because of the expense of the scholarships we won’t be continuing the program. There is potential to revive the program in the future is there are companies who want to provide classes to underprivileged kids and are willing to cover more of the costs or offer more substantial discounts.

Even though the scholarship program won’t be continuing, we’re not done working the kids. At the moment we’re working on building a revamped volunteer program in partnership with an international school. The girls who received the scholarships will be the first to participate in the new program, which will focus on English literacy.

Thanks for reading and supporting these kids.

-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.

The girls are excited and we’re anxious to get them going. In general, the parents and the communities have been supportive of the opportunity we’re trying to give, but the biggest challenge has been making sure the girls can get to their classes with no problems. We’re trying to mitigate these issues whenever possible, but we have had a few disappointing instances where students qualified, but weren’t allowed or couldn’t go.

Right now we’re paying private institutions to teach the kids in this first round of scholarships. This isn’t the way I’d prefer to run the program, but for the pilot it will have to do. In the future, partnering with an international school in Bangkok to do regular English sessions or finding a private English institution willing to allow the students to attend for free or a heavily discounted price. Those are just some ideas we’re tossing around to figure out how we can send more students in the next wave of scholarships.

To pay for that next wave of scholarships we’re planning another fundraising event June 11th. This time we’ll be partnering with MTV Exit and BED Supperclub to put on a volunteer production of  ‘A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer’ (MMRP). Similar to the Vagina Monologues which we put on last February, MMRP is a series of dialogues designed to inform audiences and provoke discussion about women’s rights, especially violence against women and human trafficking. This time we’ve got cool partners and a venue that can better accommodate the big turnout we’re expecting. Great to see so many getting behind what we’re doing and we ‘re going to need this type of momentum to make sure these kids have the best chance to succeed.

The next few weeks, besides making sure the kids are getting to their classes, I will be updating you more on the work with families we’ve been supporting since last year. Lots of good news to report, but we still need to find more sponsors.

-Dwight

About the time we were getting really comfortable with our weekly play teach and play appointments, we were told about another community that was even needier than the first. So the alarm clocks went off earlier and we recruited more friends and began Saturdays by marching a train of volunteers into a slum along the railroads tracks. The mosquitoes and the unpredictable train passing a few meters from the open air classroom were the small challenges we dealt with. For starters we had to earn the trust of the community, who had learned to be distrustful of outsiders. There were also more kids, their average ages were younger than our first group, and they could be rowdy enough to dismantle any lesson plan in favor of something more like the Saturday rodeo.

Still somehow the adventures and the challenges (trips to the hospital, outings to swim or share some event, and even those rodeo days) forged a bond in our time on Saturday. We’ve seen kids who didn’t want to talk at first, fight to be the first to answer a question and have been inspired when those with the most challenging backgrounds showed off their aptitude for learning. To thank the kids for all they’ve taught and to celebrate what we were able to share with them we spent the last Saturday handing our certificates and eating cake.

Feel free to share the photos and videos below.

Our graduation day was featured by one Thai news station (view: เด็กไทยไม่กลัวภาษาอังกฤษ) and the English version is below (view: Asean Highlights, our story starts about 4 minutes into the video).

Thanks to everyone who has supported us on this journey. A special thanks goes to The Cyril Duncan Siam Children’s Foundation and the more than 200 volunteers who gave their enthusiasm and time.

We’re not done working in these communities, just entering an exciting new phase. If you missed the last post, we’ve selected kids from both communities to give scholarships to continue improving their English (read more).

-Dwight