By Tamsin Haigh | Development
The team is on the road again this month. We’re taking our new Mobile Knowledge Booth all around schools in the Northeast of Thailand, using games and activities to teach girls about protecting themselves and making healthy life choices - all in the space of a lunch hour!
Read about the type of training we offer for teenage girls.
We’ve found that the best way to reach rural girls is within school time – when everyone is gathered in one place and they are free of other obligations, like helping out on the family farm or looking after younger siblings. Since opening our second branch in the Northeast in 2011, we have worked closely with local schools to deliver training within the timetable. This has proven a very effective way to reach underprivileged girls in the region.
However, it has not always been easy – often, we hear the following responses from school staff:
“Our timetable doesn’t have any room for this!”
“Where? We have no space for a workshop like this.”
“Maybe another year. This year, we’re very busy.”
“This is exam season/revision season/it’s the first term of the year."
To make sure that girls in these schools are not held back, we have created a new concept – the Mobile Knowledge Booth – especially for schools that are unable to spare time or space for our usual 3 hour workshop. We simply request permission to station our booth in the playground during lunch hour, and then we run games and activities on the spot. Where possible, we always conduct a workshop – however, where we can’t, this new method is making sure that we can still reach as many girls as possible with the guidance they need.
We recently started using the booth and it has been very well received. We were lucky that the Australian Government through the Embassy’s Direct Aid Program agreed to cover the costs of creating the booth and sponsored a short trial period this month.
From July, your support will make sure that we can take the booth out across the region. Thank you!
Many of these girls are planning to move to Bangkok as soon as they finish school - feeling the obligation to find well paid work to supplement the family income. So, once we have trained these girls, we encourage them to join our training in Bangkok, when they arrive in the city. Here they can access our brand new training program - which you can read about here. Our aim is to give them the skills and tools they need to find their way into meaningful, safe and fair paid work.
If you would like to keep up to date more regularly with our training, please ‘like’ us on Facebook for photos and videos. Or if you have any questions, get in touch with us at staff@pratthanadee.org.
Thank you for your support!
From all the team here in Thailand.
PS. Confused? We have changed our name! We are transitioning from our old name (Goodwill Group Foundation) to our new name (Pratthanadee Foundation). You can read more on our website. Our services remain the same, but now with our Thai name. Our listing will be adjusted on Global Giving shortly.
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