Help Sexworkers in Thailand find a new life!

Greetings from Tamar Center. Today, we want to share with you about the Tamar Vocational and Life Training that started at the beginning of May and will run for three months until the end of July. The women that joined the training are receiving vocational training in their chosen profession. The first week of the training we offered them try-out days in our Bakery, Restaurant, Coffee Shop, Hair Salon and in our hospitality team and sewing room. The women tried out the different jobs and after that had the weekend to decide which of the vocations they wanted to study. For most of the women the decision was easy but for some of them it was a difficult decision, and, in the end, they decided to study baking, cooking, hair dressing and barista.

Since May the women have been studying hard and have learned many skills. Most of the days there is a really nice smell coming out of the bakery and all of us that work at Tamar, are getting hungry… and thankfully we can test some of it as well. The hairdressing training has first been training on “fake heads” but now the women have progressed to real people and the results are nice. Some of them have changed their hair colors and are enjoying their free new looks. The barista team is working on new recipes, testing different beans, and making plans to offer some of the new drinks in our restaurant soon. The cooking team is not only learning to cook single dishes, they also learned to cook spaghetti for a large group of about 50 people. We hope that through the pictures you will get an impression of the things that our women have learned so far and are continuing to learn.

But vocational training is not everything – they also learn life skills, learn how to budget, learn about family relationships, learn about themselves, and receive group and individual counseling. We have seen some great transformation in the lives of these women over the last weeks and our goal is that they can continue to transform and will soon be ready to stand on their own feet again and provide for themselves and their kids/families through the things that they have learned.

But the training is not all about learning – there is also a lot of fun: Biking outing on the weekend, puppet training and movie night to name just a few.

But even if our main concentration has been on the training program since May, we still are continuing our daily free English classes to the women that are still working in the bars, are going three times per week on outreach into the bars of Pattaya and continue to help the other women that are already a bit longer in our program.

Thank you for your support and help that makes our work possible!

For the Tamar Family

Hello everyone!

We, from Tamar Center, would like to say a big thank you to you for your support for our work over the last months and years! We are extremely grateful for your support and help and would not have been able to do our work without you!

We started the year with a day of reflection with our whole team and some goal setting for the year and then we got into two very busy months. In January and February, we had different teams visiting us, had many extra outreaches and activities for the women still working in the bars, we had a big party in a local Hotel for the women and our biggest Valentine’s Day Outreach yet. It was a very busy but also good time. The many visitors stayed in our Guesthouse, enjoyed the Tamar Restaurant and Bakery, and took many of the products that the women made home with them. In that way, everyone in Tamar was kept busy and able to practice their learned skills!

It was nice during the Valentine’s Day outreach to reach out to women in areas of Pattaya that we normally do not visit. We concentrated on some of the smaller side streets and discovered many new bars that had opened. Many of the women had only been a short time in Pattaya and many were not happy with their situation. We were able to encourage them with our gift bags and invited them to our free English Classes. A number of women came after the outreach and are now attending the classes which is very nice.

We also had one of our former women return to Tamar Center. She had been working in Bangkok for the last months and the job there did not pay her enough and so she asked if she could return. She is now working again in our Hair Salon and the Hair Salon has seen many new customers due to her skills and she fits well back into the team!

We also just had a great outing with everyone at Tamar. Here in Thailand the man school holidays started in the middle of March and will go on until the middle of May. For this reason, we took all the children and everyone else at Tamar to a Fun Park in Bangkok for the day. We had received very discounted tickets including a lunch buffet and so were able to afford this special treat for everyone. There was much excitement and some of the women were more excited than the kids – but we all had a great day of fun!

In March also two new women joined Tamar and moved in with us, we now already have six women staying with us that will join the next three-month long Tamar vocational and life training that will start on the 3^rd of May, and we are hoping for a couple more till then.

Thank you again for your help and support – it has been helpful in keeping us going and enabled us to offer a new life to the bargirls of Pattaya!

Thank you!

For the Tamar Family