Childlife-A future for street children
Partner of "RASMI" (Rural and Social Management Institute)
supporting the project "School for Life"
Concept / Learning areas

Organic farming: This laboratory will serve experimental
research in possibilities for organic farming. Studies on growing
agricultural products without using chemicals can be conducted
here. Useful and damaging insects in agriculture can be a topic,
or the process of reintroducing threatened types of butterflies
and birds back into the area can be covered. The farm is a
learning-intensive setting that combines ecology and economy
– besides creating products, the goal is also to sell the
products, to find niches in the marketplace in an environment
dominated by chemically-dependant agricultural businesses.
Tourism: Career options for the youth include working in the
area of culture sensitive tourism. Children can learn to blaze
trails in the woods from early on: herbal-remedy trails, wild
fruit and vegetable trails, insect trails, or colors of nature
trails. They get to know the woods as a supermarket from
which they can take many things they need for their lives,
and which must be managed in such a manner that it lasts.
The children and youth can take guests on “soul trekking”
tours. They get to know their region, the villages, the
markets, the hot springs, the natural and cultural landscape,
and let the guests share in this.
Nutrition: This learning area could include a bistro on the farm with youths as cooks and experts in
northern Thai specialties. Other people have had experience in this: In the 1980’s, “Hapag Kalinga”
was founded in Manila, a restaurant for the upper-middle class with dishes from different regions in
the Philippines. Street children ran “Hapag Kalinga” and were assisted by adults. School instruction
included the things they had to learn to buy good products at low prices at a wholesale market, to
cook very well, to provide friendly service, to calculate, to advertise, and to maintain the
restaurant’s standards of quality. The guests – from President Aquino to casual customers – admired
the children’s professional work and their wild charm. In the bistro in the School for Life, guests can
not only look over the young cooks’ shoulders, they can also contribute their own recipes from their
far-off home lands.

Body & Soul: Supporting psychosocial and physical development is considered an integrated
process. Curricular elements pertaining to health and sport didactic combine with psychological-
therapeutic elements. A spa as a learning area can combine Thai-Buddhist traditions with modern
knowledge about body treatment. A children’s circus as a learning area can combine the enjoyment
of acrobatics with entrepreneurship.
Culture & Development: Northern Thailand’s dance and music
can be sustained, and artistic craftwork trained. At the same
time, new things can arise through intercultural encounters.
Workshops with native artists and international guests that
include children and youth encourage them to make their own
products, as well. Anything from an inter-ethnic jam session
with bamboo saxophonists and folk musicians to developing
ethnic fashion for children: Approaches can already be found
that show the way. The children are deeply rooted in Buddhism.
At the same time, they encounter values that also are part of
other religions: Respect for life, providing for the needy, the
worth of a human, loving nature.

Applied natural sciences: The laboratory equips children with practical knowledge for their
projects and, at the same time, sends them traveling through time in the history of scientific
experiments and discoveries. How did people in the stone age use tools? How did people in the
middle ages use the laws of gravity? How can a water wheel be built, and how does a dynamo
work? Why do plants need light? How can solar collectors be built? Children are inventors who
become alchemists and want to discover the philosopher’s stone.

Communication: The children grow up bi-lingually and learn the Thai and the English languages. Adults will communicate in either Thai or English, according to immersion methods. The school teachers also profit from English on the farm: They want to learn English themselves to teach it.
Communication also occurs via the internet. Interactive software makes the children familiar with
the computer. They learn to write correspondence over e-mail and to find access to knowledge.
International education: The United Nations has developed a curriculum
called “Global Concerns and the United Nations” that demonstrates the
relationship between “global and local concerns” in a plausible way and
creates local opportunities for action. This curriculum can be part of an
international and intercultural education that helps children determine their
position in the world, and at the same time, understand that we all live in
the same world..
Building and living: The children are involved in planning and developing the small village on the
farm. The village is grouped in a round shape that functions as a market and as a meeting place.
Besides the laboratories and learning and activity areas, the village will also have living areas for
the children who cannot live in the Pongkum village or elsewhere. The architecture utilizes
traditional knowledge about using natural materials. Wind provides cooling; water must be drawn
from the depths of the volcanic ground
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Concept
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