Housing for Women leaving the Sex Industry

Hello everybody!

On the second of August, a young woman (24 years old) walked into the Tamar Outreach Center in the Red-light District of Pattaya. She came to our Hair Salon to get her hair done, but she got a lot more than just her hair done. Our Staff recognized that she was severely depressed and sad, and they started to talk with her. It turned out, that she had only been working in the bars of Pattaya for six days. She was lured with many promises to come to work in the brothel and it turned out that all of them were lies. The first experiences that she had with customers were traumatizing, she was kept up all night and not allowed to sleep and many other things. She was about to collapse. Our team talked with her, offered her the help of Tamar Center and brought her to our Vocational Center so that she could see, what Tamar could offer her.

In the afternoon of the same day, she decided to leave the Brothel and came with all her belongings to Tamar Center – she had only two very small plastic bags and she has been with us ever since. The first couple of days she just slept. But now she has started to interact with the other women, is asking questions, received her first counseling session and is starting to work through her experiences. Her Traumas did not start in the brothel, she had a very sad and abusive childhood, has four children and a husband who is not taking care of her and more…

Thanks to your generosity, we were able to provide housing for her within an hours’ notice and she enjoys her room, the safety it provides and the quietness to sleep. It is very important for our work to always have space available as we never know who and when women are coming in need of shelter.

This month we are also happy to announce that two of our women have moved out from us into their own housing. They are still working with us but are also ready to stand on their own feet - which is the goal that we work towards. One of them has started a small side business where she sells used clothing in the evenings to make extra money and needs some extra space and the other one has three children that are growing up, is now in a relationship and wanted her own space as well. We are very happy that they are making this step.

Also, check out the picture below from our Nursery Building. We had a team come and draw some nice animals on the walls - the children love it! And me too!

Without your help, this would not be possible. So, thank you in the name of our women for providing them shelter and a safe environment to recover!

For the Tamar Family

Daniel Vaupel

Greetings from Pattaya!

Today I am very happy to report some good news to you. We have just started the 21^st Tamar Vocational and Life Training. Seven women have left the bars and the work in the sex industry of Pattaya and decided to come and join our three-month long Training.

On the 14^th of May we had the first ever Tamar Open Day where we invited the women to come and have a look at Tamar Center and what we offer. 23 women came for the whole day. We had games for them, good food, an introduction to the Tamar Training and they also got the opportunity to have try out the four different jobs (Hairdresser, Baking, Sewing, Cooking) that we offer in the training for 30 minutes each. It was a great day and through that Open Day three women joined us directly.

The women also took the opportunity to have a look at the accommodations that we offer them, and they really checked us out. It was nice to see that they did and that they liked what we offered them. We are very grateful to your support for making it possible that we can have accommodations ready for the women to move into directly. In the weeks before the Training started, we also did some improvements to our houses, some painting, purchased new fans and other small things to make it as welcoming as possible!

We were really happy with the result and on Friday we than had the Opening Ceremony for the Tamar Training program. It was another evening of fun, games from the students from last year, food and fun and now the women are already deep in the Training. They finished the first week and you can see the pictures attached they have a good time.

Thank you!

Daniel Vaupel

Hello everybody!

Greetings from Pattaya Thailand. In todays update I want to thank you for giving to our “Housing for Women coming out of the Sex Industry” Project. In the last ten days it has been shown how important it is to have this program: Three women came within that time to us and asked to move in straight away, all of them were in urgent need of shelter:

-          One younger woman, 23 years old, came to one of our Outreach Parties and during the Party could not stop crying. She told a staff member that she wanted to stop working in prostitution and asked if we could help her get her things from the brothel as she was afraid how the Manager would react. We helped her and she moved into hour housing that night

-          One woman in her thirties with a 5-month-old baby contacted us as well. She was abused by her boyfriend, then started working in a bar and got abused there and just wanted out. When she came to us, she told us that her Aunt was holding her baby “hostage” – meaning she was trying to get money from the woman so that she would care for the baby while the woman worked in the bar. Our team drove with the woman to her village, got the baby and both moved into our housing.

-          The third woman that we took in was working in “special massage” in Oman when she got pregnant. After giving birth she could not continue working there and so she was brought to the Thai Embassy which arranged for her to fly back to Thailand. Back in Pattaya she heard about Tamar and asked if she could come to us. She has moved in with her 1.5 months old baby and we were happy that we had another room available for her.

And while I am writing this update, I received the news that another woman has contacted one of our Staff and wants out of the Bars – not sure yet how serious she is, but we are glad that we have another room free.

Since my arrival in Pattaya we never had so many women leavings the Bars in such a short time frame, but we are very happy about it and thanks to your generous donations, we can offer safe housing on a moments notice for these women. Thank you for giving them safety.

For the Tamar Family

Daniel Vaupel

PS: In the Picture section you can also see two of the four badges that we received from Global Giving for our work. We are very proud and thankful to have received them!

Happy New Year to you all! Greetings from Tamar Center. We are very thankful for your continued support of our work and that you have chosen to support our Housing for Women project. Today we would like to update you a little bit about what has happened in the last three months.

In our last news update we wrote about our problem that all our beds were full – it was a good problem to have. We have decided against renting another house for the time being. One reason was that we had three people leaving our program and so we have again some free space. It is great when we see that people are moving on and are ready to return to a more “normal” life. One woman left to take care of her sister that had a stroke and is now living with her family in Bangkok, another woman left to start her own business in Bangkok – it is going well and we are purchasing things from her for Tamar Center as well, and a ladyboy left to move back in with his Family in the Issan region of Thailand.

There leaving also gave us the opportunity to move some of our women around, we were able to move some that have children into bigger rooms and we did some renovations, repairs and purchased some new furniture for some of the houses. This time we had to get a couple new fridges and stoves as the women have started to cook more at home. This is a very good sign, as they are taking their health more serious. Normally they would just buy all the food at street stalls, but we are teaching them to be more careful about quality of the food they eat, the amount of oil they use, sugar, etc.  We are happy to see that they take it serious.

We also installed a sun screen at the play area of our Nursery house. In the past the kids could not play outside in the mornings as the sun was too hot. Now with the cover they can play outside the whole day.

This week we also will do some more painting in the houses. Two houses just need to get painted but we also will add some small murals in some of the children rooms to make it nicer.

Thank you that through your help we can offer clean and safe places to women that need them. We are celebrating 20 years of Tamar Center in 2019 (in August) and are looking forward to welcoming many new women into our shelter this year!

Have a great year!

Daniel Vaupel

Greetings from Tamar Center in Pattaya. Today we would like to give you an update about the work that we are doing and are happy to report that we have a problem: All our accommodation is full! In the last weeks we were able to take in several new women that wanted to leave the sex industry behind and as many of them came with children we have right now all accommodation places occupied – which is a great problem to have!

We are considering right now to either rent another house where women could stay or find some short time solutions until January as in January one of the people that we take care off is planning to move back home to the home village and two other women will start a one-year long hairdressing and beauty training. This will create some more space for new women in our facility. As it is the goal of our ministry to help women leave the sex industry behind and start a new, normal, life we are very happy that they are ready to take the next step in this direction.

On the other hand, in the last weeks we also experienced why it is so important to always have some empty beds ready: One day in September a woman suddenly showed up at our place with all her things. She asked if she could move in with us and start working at our place. She had never been with us and had never been in one of our programs but had heard from a friend about Tamar Center. In night before she had a very bad customer that hurt her very much and she just wanted to leave the industry behind. We were glad to have space that we could offer her and so she is now staying with us. Her first weeks were difficult as the customer had hurt her very much and she needed several Doctor appointments to get better. But now she is healing very well and is also interacting well with the other women in our program and is starting to integrate herself with us.

Thank you for helping us making sure that there is always a space for a woman in need at Tamar Center. Your donations are helping us to be ready at any moment to take care of the once in need.

Grateful for your Partnership!

Daniel Vaupel