Girl and Father Living in Tin Hut behind Cemetery

Nov 25, 2007

Girl and Father Living in Tin Hut behind Cemetery

I blogged this at one of my other blogs and everytime I look at this girl’s face I feel like I should do more, so I’ll blog it here too.

In Thailand it’s normal to live on a fraction what we live on in the USA. The average person here WITH a college degree makes between 3000 and 7000 Thai baht per month. In one year that equals $1080 - 2520.00 USD. Living on 3000 baht is difficult here - for me I’d say impossible as I like to eat too much. Thais eat very little that are making 3000 baht per month. Wonder why most are skinny?

This story came from an online city newspaper that operates out of Pattaya Thailand. I know the owner of the site, he is a foreigner and we’ve exchanged emails some over the last few months. He is a good guy and occasionally his Thai reporters stumble across a human interest story.

This one broke my heart as I know there are MANY Thai families living like this - but so few times is anything done. The deputy mayor and the school staff opened an account for this girl and her father so they could take care of basic expenses. Here in Thailand it’s VERY easy to transfer money between ATM machines into anyone’s bank account if you know the number and name on the account. So - they made it easy for this poor family to receive some cash.

It’s bad enough that the family had so little cash that they hadn’t enough for food sometimes, but when I read the part about the girl being excluded from social groups in school - probably because she was so poor, dirty maybe? smelled? Anyone’s guess… all of it heartbreaking.

If you feel like you have $5 or something to contribute, would you? I’ll accept the cash in our PayPal account and then do a transfer into their account (and take a photo of the receipt and send it to you if you donate). (trythaifood@gmail.com is our PayPal account)

How’s that?

Or, I’m sure you could find someone in your own city that needs the cash. If you have it and you’re not hungry today - why not find someone to give it to and make their day a little easier?

Story below…

Story from Pattaya City News (.net)

Here’s something we should see more of… not being Thai I don’t hear about this stuff often. It’s not that Thai people don’t care, but each Thai person probably knows 20 families like this one. Send them a few baht by transferring from your Thai bank (any) through the ATM machine. Follow the instructions for transferring - it’s easy and you’ll have no excuse for not doing it. Really, you’ll feel like you did something…

The article said she was always excluded from social gatherings - do the Thai kids exclude poor kids from their groups? There must be a hell of a lot of poor kids, how do they choose who gets excluded? I haven’t seen that in Thai schools, but of course I was teaching in the ENglish program and all the parents of those kids have enough money.

Man, a very heartbreaking story… even if I don’t know the whole story and background…

Deputy Mayor helps 11 year old Student living rough behind a Chinese Cemetary.

Deckjing Saroshar aged 11 is a bright student who attends Pattaya School Number 2. Everyday she arrives at school in her white and blue uniform and appears to be a happy child. However, Teachers have been concerned why she is constantly excluded from social gatherings at lunch and afternoon breaks. They were also concerned about her weight and decided to do some investigation into her living conditions and were shocked to find that she was living with her jobless Father in a tin hut behind a Chinese Cemetery in Naklua. Information was passed on to Khun Ronagit, Deputy Mayor of Pattaya who was told that the girl’s father, Khun Tongpraer aged 35 would sometimes not have enough money to feed himself or his daughter. He had come to Pattaya 10 years ago to search for his Wife, without success. He was unable to find work and now collects recyclable items from the street. He uses most of the money to educate and feed his daughter. The Deputy Mayor decided to help out the pair and opened an account for the girl at the Government Savings Bank and placed an undisclosed personal donation inside the account. If you would like more information on the Girl and her Father please call the Pattaya City Call Center on 1337 or you can send a donation direct to account number 03-2105-20-112608-2 at the Government Savings Bank.

Story from www.pattayacitynews.net