Childlife-A future for street children in Mae Sai
Verena's report after her first days as a Childlife volunteer (14.01.02)
My first impressions from Mae Sai.
When I arrived here in Mae Sai in the
beginning of January, the Childlife gave
me a warm welcome.. Ngaow and Thai
picked me up from the bus terminal with
a pick up truck, and at the house lots of
children welcomed me with a cheerful
'sawat dee kah'
Childlifeteam
(from the left side)
Ralph
Verena
Tai
Aeh
Ngaow
Pok
By chance there was another guest from Germany in the office when I arrived. He was a free lance journalist,
who currently works on the issue of the street children's situation in Thailand and might write something about
Childlife as well. Ralph , the Swiss volunteer showed us around in the house and explained the local situation
to us. I was very amazed that with so few funds so much good and dedicated work is done here.
Ralph took us to the bridge and showed us the begging children , so that in spite of
all the laughing and smiling faces of playing children at Childlife we wouldn't forget
where they originally came from Many of the children are being forced by their
families to either go begging or smuggling at the border. Often the children stay on
the streets overnight. Some begin to inhale glue, a way to escape reality, that will
make them suffer badly in the long run It also is the first step into a life with drugs.
Without papers or education the children have no chance whatsoever to change
the situation on their own.
This shows how important the work of organisations like Childlife is in Mae Sai.
We travelled to a nearby Akha village to get to know more about the children's origin. The villagers live in small poor huts, mostly big families
have to share just one room. They have barely any opportunities to find
any regular employment as they have no papers and no education. Many
parents thus have no choice but to send their children to go begging,
smuggling or rag picking in the dumpster
Due to the lack of any kind of hygiene measures the children suffer a lot form infectious diseases.,
as they have to take their bath in the border river, which is being used as sewage as well.
The children at Childlife obviously are very grateful, that someone takes care of them and their problems. Here they have the chance to talk about their problems and worries.
....Here they truly can be children again, ..........playing and jumping around.
But this never makes them forget their duties. Together they keep the house clean, prepare their food and wash
the dishes. They make good use of the teaching at school and a very motivated to learn new things. The teaching
at Childlife itself very much follows the Thai style of teaching, but additionally some more playful elements are
integrated so that the children really enjoy it. However, the long-term goal is to be able to send all the children
to a government school. Childlife needs more staff. Before my arrival there were 3,5 cares taking care of
42 children. In particular it would be important to have more Thai staff, that can take care of the children
without any language or culture differences.
On January 11th 2002 some business men form Amway,
a local Mae Sai based company , visited Childlife and
donated some clothes for the children. die Kinder.
With great enthusiasm the children tried on the warm and
colourful pullovers and proudly showed them around.
To thank the donors they sang some new songs, they just
had recently learnt.
But there was going to be more visitors:
Dr. Chaleamlap, a physician, had prepared
a generous meal for the children himself and
built up a few cooking pots, fruit juices and
sweets in the court yard.		 With big eyes the children picked up
their huge portions and after the rich
meal some of the children nearly didn't
make it to eat the sweets anymore.
Some children rolled up their T-shirts
to proudly present their very full bellies.
Both visitors announced that they would continue to support Childlife in the future as well. Ngaow's
and his team's work is appreciated and respected her very much. This big local response could
mean good prospects for Childlife regarding its future.
On the next day the nation-wide Children's Day took place. In the morning
all children were waiting ready for departure in their Childlife T-shirts that
they had gotten at Christmas . the upcoming activities were a nice change
for them. Nearly all of the 40 children were loaded up onto one pick-up
truck, while the remaining children were divided onto the motorcycles.
It was an amazing picture. And off we went to Mae Sai.
In front of the district
office there were colourful
stand and stages. There
were dance performances,
loud music and free food
for then children. 		Thrilled the
boys climbed
upon a tank
and played
with it.
Later on we went to a nearby lake for swimming . Without the car trips with the children like this one would
be virtually impossible. As most of the children can't go to a government school and spend most time at the
Childlife house, I think that it is very important to also give them impressions of the surrounding area and give
them a change from the daily routine at Childlife.
Enthusiastically the children jumped into the cold water still
wearing all their clothes and floundered about in the water
until their teeth were chattering because of the cold. water.
When all the children were relatively dry again we continued
our trip to the monkey mountain. We climbed up until we
reached the vista point. On the way the children were
watching the countless monkeys that were jumping about in
the trees. One of the boys was twinged heavily by a monkey,
which gave all of us a good laugh.
Generally speaking it is shocking how much help is needed here in the North of Thailand.
of governmental
authorities observably
become impoverished.
Especially children suffer
from this development
and as mentioned before,
leave the villages for
begging in nearby towns
such as Mae Sai.
The Akha, an ethnic minority, often still
are viewed as the most primitive hill-
tribe, which is difficult to develop as
they stick to their traditions .Officials
often are ignorant of the Akha's highly
developed culture so that the Akha are
very much endangered of losing their
traditional values. Villages in the vicinity
Bust most of them move on to bigger tourist areas, where they helplessly fall into the hands of pimps and human
traffickers. Childlife tries to intervene in time to prevent this and to give the children another perspective for their
future. On the streets of Mae Sai and the surrounding area there are many more children and families in need of
help, but at the moment Childlife can't do more. It is not that Childlife lacks good ideas or the determination to
help, on the contrast, staff is very motivated to help even more children, but the necessary funds and staff are
currently simply lacking.

I hope for the future, that with the necessary funds the human kindness can be further increased and Childlife's outreach enlarged.

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