Thailandproject is a humanitarian organisation that is run by the Norwegian students in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. The project primarily finances a children's home for 30-40 children in Northern Thailand that is run by the BaanChivitMai organisation.
BaanChivitMai (BCM), means "home for new life". BCM is a child orphanage that was started by a Swedish missionary Eva Olofsson. It is situated in ChiengRai, in North-Thailand, a city surrounded by mountains and jungle where you find many remote villages.
In these villages, poor tribal people live and they are often not regarded as Thailand citizens because they have no written documentation. They have their own languages and can not read or talk the Thai language. This makes the process of becoming Thailand citizens very hard and therefore they do not have the right to education and medical help. Without the chance of education, work is hard to get. Many people used to live of opium crops but now that it is illegal, they have had many problems finding alternate sources of income. The result has been that children often are sold to brothels or that children have gone "willingly" to get money for their family.
The target- group for BCM is foremost children who are in danger of being sold to prostitution in Bankok and other cities. In the last years, AIDS has increased rapidly around ChiengRai and BCM is trying to help the children with AIDS and also do preventive work.
The children's past is often characterised by abuse, hunger, poverty, drugs or death in near family. For the AIDS infected children, they have often lost their parents to AIDS and they are regarded as outlaws and rejected by relatives and village. These AIDS sick children are sometimes beaten and verbally abused. It is the belief of several tribal people that they are possessed by "evil spirits" and that they will overcome the disease if the evil spirits leave them.
BCM wants to help these children - providing accommodation, food, education, practical skills training - and the most important of all, namely care and love.
BCM was started in 1993 and is also supported by Queen Silvia of Sweden. Our current goal is to help financing the institution through a project we have started in Australia. This project involves getting Norwegian students in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore to donate money to the project in Thailand. All funds (100%) donated by students go directly to BCM and we cover the administration costs through other means.
BCM is divided into three divisions. The main centre is in ChiengRai and has over 50 school aged children and 20 young teenage girls. Many of these children were in risk of being be sold for prostitution. The second shelter is for children with AIDS. The third shelter, Phayagong, is situated in the mountains and it was very difficult to get food and medication to the centre due to its location. A moped was used as means of transportation until November 2002. Now, they are using a 4WD car that we bought for the orphanage in 2002. They have 30-40 children living there and we are currently financing all expenses for this home through our organisation.
BCM also have new projects in development. |
