blog

We recently said goodbye to a team of visitors and friends from Ludlow. They come to Thailand every couple of years to encourage, bless and serve. This year we had a wonderful time playing the games and activities that they brought with them.

The emphasis and focus of our teams is changing slightly this year and the next, from teams working directly on projects and in local villages, to engaging more with the community of people who work in Hands, especially our local staff. We are trying to see a greater level of encouragement and input in areas like discipleship, kingdom values and concepts of church and religion, as well as team-building activities and celebration days.

The Ludlow team came with a number of team-building games, which had at their core lessons about church and Christian community and service. They built a Spider's Web of ropes, which teams were challenged to pass through one at a time, smaller ones at the top, bigger ones at the bottom. Teams were encouraged to think and plan, to work together on a common goal, to put others before themselves.

Another activity put teams to work carrying one member of their team through a series of loops and bends on a wire, emphasising the need for clear communication with each other.

The Ludlow team also supported our interns as they arranged an "Olympic Sports" day for the children of a local school. The interns prepared games and contests, which the Ludlow people supported and helped to facilitate.

All in all, it was a fun and thoroughly enjoyable time for all of the hands community. We look forward to the next one!

To view pictures from the teams activities please click here!

In April this year, Fang district, where our Centre is located, was battered by terrible storms. Strong winds blew across the flatlands and rice paddies. Tiles were ripped from roofs and some houses lost their roofs completely.

One of the ladies who works with us lost her roof in the tempest. Jeun fled Burma to come to Thailand many years ago. Not long after she arrived here her Thai husband abandoned her, leaving her to care for her daughter and 2 young grandchildren. Her daughter succeeded in finding work but has to leave her children at home with Jeun. We met her a number of years ago and offered her work cleaning and taking care of the upkeep of the rooms at our Centre.

As well as the damage to the roof, many of the old roof joists were rotten and needed replacement. We had wanted to help Jeun improve the conditions in her home for a long time, so here was the perfect opportunity. New rendering on the walls, 2 new doors to replace the old rotten ones, a new window and frame and a new kitchen floor would make life a lot more comfortable to Jeun and her family.

What made the renovation process so wonderful, apart from seeing the look of joy and delight on Jeun's face every morning, was the fact that for the first time in her life, she was able to choose the colour of the paint we used on her walls, both inside and outside her house. As you can see, she likes bright colours!

Thanks to all of you who helped us to help Jeun. She has been truly blessed and thanks us and God every day for her new home.

To see pictures of the transformation click here!

Sometimes all it takes to make an impression is to do the unexpected.

Long before our fish farm project in Fang began, the local farmers used a narrow path that skirted the boundaries of the land to get to their fields. When hands bought the land and began to dig the fish ponds, these local farmers expected that their path would be blocked and that they would have to find an alternative route across the fields.

Instead of doing what everybody expected, instead of doing what most people would have done, blocking off the path and putting up fences, we decided to do the unexpected. We felt we wanted to leave a positive and lasting impression on the local community, to challenge their expectations, to leave them and their community with an imprint of who we are and why we are here.

We gave the farmers freedom to continue to use the path. In fact, we widened it and levelled it off, making it much easier to access their fields. They can now also transport crops, seeds and tools to and from their fields with ease, especially during the rainy season.

For us, this tale of the unexpected illustrates what hands is doing here in Thailand, breaking down barriers and laying new pathways into peoples hearts.

For most parents the school run involves struggling to find a parking space or battling the rush hour traffic. For some parents in Thailand this is the least of their worries.

In remote country villages in Thailand, children face many dangers on their way to school. The quiet country lanes can be an ideal place for traffickers to abduct a child, they could disappear in a moment, never to be heard from again. With no legal status these children are extremely vulnerable to abuse and expoitation and would be very difficult to trace. 

In an orange orchard on the Thai/Burma border is a small village serving as a safe haven for refugee families who have just crossed into Thailand. Many of the families who stay there work hard in the local orchards for just a couple of £'s a day. hands has been involved in this community for many years supporting new families that cross the border with aid packs, medical attention and more. Until recently, 20 of the children from this village attended school. Unfortunately, the local school suffered a blow when the charity sponsoring their school bus program pulled out. The children faced being put in harms way because there was no funding available to pay for the school buses. The local council had no budget for the school trucks either. They were on their own.

Through the success of the recent sponsored walk, hands was able to secure funding for 1 school bus to take children from the village and the surrounding area to school for the next 12 months.2 other school buses are being funded by a local Thai charity, meaning 3 buses are currently taking nearly 300 children to school. Many of them make 4 or 5 trips, twice a day, meaning some of the children are still waiting to go home long after the school bell has rung.

We are hoping not only to be able to continue to fund the school truck we have beyond this year but also to find funding for 3 more trucks to get children into school on time and back home more quickly.

If you would like to help or make a contribution please email James at office@handsworld.org

Thank You

54 Kids. 4 Kilometers. 8 tasks. 1 waterfall.£1000. This sponsored walk was going to be a little bit different.

For the most part the children at our hostels are the beneficaries of your support and encouragement. This year we all wanted to do something different.

The plan was to take the children on a sponsored walk through a national park in Fang to raise money, which the children would give away to help other children in need. We also wanted to make it a fun day out for all of the hands family. The children were grouped together into teams of around 10.

The course rambled to the top of a beautiful waterfall, set in dense forest. The course was 2 KM long, so each team had to make the journey twice. With staggered starts, the teams made their way up the 1st leg of the course. On each leg of the walk, 4 activities had been planned to encourage the children to work together and to underline some of the lessons they had learned so far at the kids camp. The activities included brain teasers, team challenges, obstacle courses; all fun and games. Teams had to fill a bucket of water from the river using home made collanders, find a way to put the entire team through a single sheet of paper. Forage in the undergrowth for an object that nobody else had found and they had to cross the waterfalls on milk crates without getting wet!

The children were laughing, chatting excitedly, snacking on skewered BBQ chicken and enjoying the outdoors, all the while knowing that they were doing something different, trying to make a difference.

The money that was raised will be used to enable one of the local schools to continue to run a school bus service. Without our kids hard work and the fantastic support from people in the UK these children would not be able to get to school and get the education that they vitally need!

 Click here to view pictures from the event!

With the roof missing from their home and no protection from the elements, Jeun and her grandaughters were temporarily homeless. A powerful, localised storm caused severe damage to many buildings around one of our projects in Northern Thailand including destroying the roof of Jeun's house.

As well as the damage to the roof, many of the old roof joists were rotten and needed replacement. We have wanted to help Jeun improve the conditions in her home for a long time, so here was the perfect opportunity. New rendering on the walls, 2 new doors to replace the old rotten ones, a new window and frame and a new kitchen floor would make life a lot more comfortable to Jeun and her family.

Jeun fled Burma to come to Thailand many years ago. Not long after she arrived here her Thai husband abandoned her, leaving her to care for her daughter and 2 young grandchildren. Her daughter succeeded in finding work but has to leave her children at home with Jeun. We met her a number of years ago and have since offered her work cleaning and taking care of the upkeep of the rooms at our Centre in Northern Thailand.

If you would like to make a donation towards the cost of the repairs to Jeuns house please email me at james@handsworld.org for details.

To view the pictures of Jeun's house on our Facebook page click here

As you may be aware, the past 3 months of heavy rains here in Thailand are causing major problems for residents in and around Bangkok. Black, polluted waters are causing many illnesses as people are forced to live their lives amidst the flooding. To date it has been reported that there have been 506 deaths caused by the flooding, many are ill with waterbourne diseases and the situaion looks like it will continue for some time yet.

Thankfully, living in the north of the country, we have been relatively unaffected by the flooding. The shelves in the supermarkets are a little bare and prices of some items have begun to rise but on the whole we are very lucky to be where we are. Many residents from central Thailand have retreated to Chiang Mai to take extended holidays and seek refuge while their towns are flooded.

The Thai Government has announced a £2.6 bn plan to help the city recover after the waters have subsided and many businesses have paid bonuses early to help their staff cover the costs of repairs.  Even so, it seems as though it will take some time for the waters to clear. Water levels in the towns and cities north of Bangkok have started to drop but these waters still have to pass through Bangkok in order to drain into the sea. Some areas are expected to remain under water until December! At the moment Thailands major international airport is running normally and is not expected to be affected by the flooding.

We hope this puts your concearns (about us, at least) to rest. The Thai Government are working hard and the Thai people are working even harder to get through this difficult time together.

On the 3rd of July fire razed a home to the ground in the village of Moo Seur, Chiang Rai. It began because a candle was left to burn, after everybody in the bamboo house had gone to bed. The house, like many others in this region, was not connected to mains electricity. Candlelight was their only option at night.

The house was completely destroyed, nothing remained. Luckily other villagers awoke and went to help extinguish the fire before more houses were affected.

Members of the hands team visited the family the following day after hearing news of the fire. They reported back to us that the local council had donated some blankets and basic cooking utensils but the family had no money to build a new house.

We commited to help the family rebuild their home. We supplied various building materials including roofing tiles, wooden and concrete pillars, bamboo as well as many other items. During the rebuild many people came together in the village to help the family with rebuilding their home.

The family and many of the villagers expressed their thanks to hands for being there once again to encourage them and give them hope in these difficult times once more.

Last summer we initiated an internship program for young Thai adults to spend a year working and training with us. Currently we have 6 interns based at The Centre in Fang. They have been given various duties ranging from accounting to driving to basic teaching for some of our youngest children.

More recently the interns began a 3 week course in photography and videography, instructed by our resident expert Peter Summers. The course was designed to teach the interns the fundamentals of camera work and photography. The final aspect of the training was a field assignment to document the lives of some of the children at the hostels.

The interns took to the training like Thai ducks to water. They showed  real ability with their camera work, particularly the photograhy, even though the equipment we had to train them with was basic (anybody working at Apple, Canon or Sony please get in touch!). The speed at which they picked up new concepts and applied them to their assignments amazed us all. Their final presentations were excellent and displayed real talent.

Throughout the next 12 months the interns will have a busy schedule of training including things like first aid, book keeping, budgeting, computing, business administration, theatre training and communications. We will keep you posted with regular updates on how they are getting on!