By Kristin Moreau, MS, CCC-SLP | International Department Coordinator
Mekong Regional Indigenous Child Rights Home: Update on DEPDC/GMS’s Safe Shelter
Safe Shelter sees fall in external financial support but doors and hearts remain open.
Mekong Regional Indigenous Child Rights Home (MRICRH) in Mae Chan, Chiang Rai Province remains operational and continues to provide a safe home for high-risk children and women in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) of Northern Thailand.
The safe shelter is currently providing a home to five persons, four children and one young woman.Three of the children continue to attend a nearby school and are provided tuition and academic support, lunch allowance, and safe transportation to and from school each day.
This week, the three school children will complete exams for the 2017-2018 school year. In Thailand, the “summer break” is traditionally during the months of March and April due to Songkran Festival in mid-April. This year it falls on April 13th through 15th. Songkran is celebrated as the official Thai New Year's Festival. On this special day, the members of MRICRH will splash water on each other to represent a new beginning. Many others throughout Thailand will travel to their hometowns to meet their elders.
The children are excited that the winter chilly air has gone so they can comfortably swim in the nearby Swimming Home’s pool, where swimming is used to help rehabilitate the children who have experienced abuse. Several of the eldest students from DEPDC/GMS’s Half Day School came to visit the Safe Shelter to provide swimming lessons to the students. They also learned to stretch before swimming and other forms of exercise. They are now three of the strongest swimmers at their local school, where the children also have the opportunity to swim once per week.
Thank you for reading our update. I want to offer a special thank you to the past and future donors of MRICRH. Your donations have helped this shelter provide room and board, basic necessities, medical care, scholarships to attend local government schools, school supplies, transportation, and vocational training for at-risk, vulnerable children and women. Please continue to keep DEPDC/GMS and our various projects in mind during this new season.
I kindly ask that you continue your generous support as able, as the shelter remains open and operates strictly through donation support which has been dwindling significantly the last 3 years.
Additionally, I welcome you to visit…and even consider volunteering if possible. I invite you to come and take a look at the impact of even small monthly donations of 10 to 20 dollars to DEPDC/GMS…and to enjoy the smiles that you have made possible!
On behalf of DEPDC/GMS founder, all the staff members and volunteers, and especially our children, I would like to wish you a very cheerful Songkran (Thai New Year)!
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