We help poor children in Bangkok slums, orphanages and homes for physically or mentally challenged children in surrounding areas.
We also help many thousands of people in Northern Thailand who are living in desperate situations...
We also help many thousands of people in Northern Thailand who are living in desperate situations...
March/2013.
Gift of Happiness Foundation helping migrant families in Mae Sot, Tak province, N. Thailand.
There are many thousands of Burmese (Mainly Karen) migrant families and refugees living in and around Mae Sot. There is the biggest refugee camp in Thailand (Almost 100,000 people) about an hour’s drive from Mae Sot and another four camps with even more refugees being serviced by Gift of Happiness and other larger NGO's working from Mae Sot.
There are a couple of hundred migrant schools, some safe houses for abused women & children, a safe house/school for street kids, the Mae Tao Clinic and a few smaller medical and HIV/Aids centers for migrants who cannot afford the Thai hospitals.
According to a recent report by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), an estimated 200,000 migrant children younger than 17 are in Thailand. I would say that about half of those children live in the Mae Sot region (Tak Province) and most of the rest are living further north along the Thai/Burma border, with a few thousand scattered in other parts of Thailand...
Gift of Happiness Foundation tries to help as many of those people as possible with our very limited resources and total reliance donations from individuals, small companies and clubs/groups n Bangkok and outside Thailand. In 2012 we helped 110,000 of these people by giving them used clothing, educational equipment, toys and medical supplies. We regularly give supplies to help the Mae Tao Clinic where they deliver up to 15 babies daily (Yes it's true!). We are paying rent for the Irrawaddy school n Mae Sot and some land to grow food crops for the Women & Children HIV/Aids health Center in Mae Sot.
Importantly...We also give two or three comedy clown shows per day on our four or five day regular aid giving tours. These important gifts of happiness are given at most of the locations we visit and we probably entertained at least 90,000 children, parents and teachers in 2012.
Gift of Happiness is also supporting the One Dream One World safe house/school for street kids...the S.A.W. safe house for abused women and children...and providing as much regular food-aid and educational support for the Sky Blue school at the garbage dump where there are 260+ men, women and children who live on the dump near Mae Sot.
In the past year we have developed several projects aimed at helping the children to gain a degree of self confidence and spend more time in education...
We provide school uniforms to as many as possible. This gives the children a chance to feel like they are part of a family where everyone is equal and therefore they feel more confident. With this positive approach...they are more able to spent time studying instead of trying to avoid being bullied because they don't look the same as the other kids in school.
We have also provided a school bus (Somthaw) to replace the motorbike & basket used to collect the street kids in Mae Sot. This will mean all the kids can be collected from, and taken back to their street dwellings, in one go...giving them an extra hour and a half more study/playtime at the shelter for street kids.
We aim to further develop our aid giving and sustainable projects even more during 2013. If we are successful in obtaining enough funding, we intend to provide many more aid giving projects in Mae Sot and other locations in Thailand.
We are currently looking for sponsorship for a small truck to help us deliver the many tons of goods that we receive from groups, International schools, individual families and our new supporting logistics company Santa Fe Re locations, who are asking all their customers to donate to us when they move house. We are also keen to get financial support to buy those essential school uniforms for as many poor children as possible.
Help us make a difference...
Gift of Happiness Foundation helping migrant families in Mae Sot, Tak province, N. Thailand.
There are many thousands of Burmese (Mainly Karen) migrant families and refugees living in and around Mae Sot. There is the biggest refugee camp in Thailand (Almost 100,000 people) about an hour’s drive from Mae Sot and another four camps with even more refugees being serviced by Gift of Happiness and other larger NGO's working from Mae Sot.
There are a couple of hundred migrant schools, some safe houses for abused women & children, a safe house/school for street kids, the Mae Tao Clinic and a few smaller medical and HIV/Aids centers for migrants who cannot afford the Thai hospitals.
According to a recent report by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), an estimated 200,000 migrant children younger than 17 are in Thailand. I would say that about half of those children live in the Mae Sot region (Tak Province) and most of the rest are living further north along the Thai/Burma border, with a few thousand scattered in other parts of Thailand...
Gift of Happiness Foundation tries to help as many of those people as possible with our very limited resources and total reliance donations from individuals, small companies and clubs/groups n Bangkok and outside Thailand. In 2012 we helped 110,000 of these people by giving them used clothing, educational equipment, toys and medical supplies. We regularly give supplies to help the Mae Tao Clinic where they deliver up to 15 babies daily (Yes it's true!). We are paying rent for the Irrawaddy school n Mae Sot and some land to grow food crops for the Women & Children HIV/Aids health Center in Mae Sot.
Importantly...We also give two or three comedy clown shows per day on our four or five day regular aid giving tours. These important gifts of happiness are given at most of the locations we visit and we probably entertained at least 90,000 children, parents and teachers in 2012.
Gift of Happiness is also supporting the One Dream One World safe house/school for street kids...the S.A.W. safe house for abused women and children...and providing as much regular food-aid and educational support for the Sky Blue school at the garbage dump where there are 260+ men, women and children who live on the dump near Mae Sot.
In the past year we have developed several projects aimed at helping the children to gain a degree of self confidence and spend more time in education...
We provide school uniforms to as many as possible. This gives the children a chance to feel like they are part of a family where everyone is equal and therefore they feel more confident. With this positive approach...they are more able to spent time studying instead of trying to avoid being bullied because they don't look the same as the other kids in school.
We have also provided a school bus (Somthaw) to replace the motorbike & basket used to collect the street kids in Mae Sot. This will mean all the kids can be collected from, and taken back to their street dwellings, in one go...giving them an extra hour and a half more study/playtime at the shelter for street kids.
We aim to further develop our aid giving and sustainable projects even more during 2013. If we are successful in obtaining enough funding, we intend to provide many more aid giving projects in Mae Sot and other locations in Thailand.
We are currently looking for sponsorship for a small truck to help us deliver the many tons of goods that we receive from groups, International schools, individual families and our new supporting logistics company Santa Fe Re locations, who are asking all their customers to donate to us when they move house. We are also keen to get financial support to buy those essential school uniforms for as many poor children as possible.
Help us make a difference...
