Khao Lak Community Appeal | Charity Projects in Khao Lak Thailand

- Health Centre Update
- Land Donation Update

- Home and Life Bakery project update
- Craftshop High Season success
- Narenthorn Ambulance update

The new addition to the Health Centre has been a huge improvement for this newly recognized “Small Hospital”. There is now space to store equipment hygienically and efficiently, leaving more space in the main building for examination rooms and patient care. Previously the bad smell that was released from the sterilizing machine would cause an unpleasant atmosphere in one part of the main building. This is now confined to the wash and sterilization room and does not affect patients and staff. The new building also has a treatment tank for water, again, increasing the level of hygiene at this health institution.

The extra space created in the main building means that the health Centre will be able to create 2 new rooms, one for pregnancy and children care and one for general first aid.

In May 2011 land ownership documents were finally completed in FED’s name. In this month Construction agreements were also signed and everything was set to go. On Tuesday afternoon of June 14th 2011 FED proudly hosted the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the Unified Learning Centre.

The event was not only marked by its traditionally Buddhist ceremonial procedure, performed to signify the construction of an official building, but it was also colourfully highlighted by the smiling faces that attended, excited at the important step that the organization was taking on behalf of Burmese children and future generations to come. Construction is now underway with a predicted completion date of early January.

In 2010 the Khao Lak Community Appeal donated bakery equipment to Home and Life to set them up with a small scale commercial business. Home and Life’s bakery venture has promted the construction of a new project donated by funders from the Netherlands.

They have been donated a purpose built coffee shop commuters between Phuket and Khao Lak and visiting tourists. In this new coffee shop they will make full use of the bakery equipment donated by KLCA, making bread, muffins and cookies daily for their customers. The income from this coffee shop will help the Orphanage to cover running costs, keep the 26 children in education and help look after their welfare.

The Ambulance has been doing tremendous work since its donation 2 years ago. The volunteer team has been busy with road accidents, rescuing snakes from people’s houses and also doing a lot for flood victims – both back in April in Krabi, and in August in Khao Lak itself. They are a very committed team of volunteers and the ambulance has been a valuable donation to the area and their work.

It can be frequently seen driving around the area, on its way to attend an accident or person in distress. The team has now become quite famous in the area for their work, with local newspapers interviewing them or reporting about the work they do.

The craft shop was a huge success this high season, some months a few groups even earned enough money to pay for the equivalent of a teacher’s salary for a month. The shop was popular with tourists wanting to give something back to the community, and also with those that were looking some a unique handmade gift to take home. This coming season is set to be bigger and better than before, we will focus more on marketing and a new website will be up and running soon.

The craft shop is also expanding, with groups and ngo’s approaching us instead of vice versa; now craft groups as far as PhangNga have heard of us and the success of the shop, and have requested that they take part in the project.

The Khao Lak Community Appeal has benefitted from the shop for one particular reason. A girl visiting Khao Lak from Germany decided to take home some products for sale to friends and family to raise money for KLCA’s projects. She has done this successfully and will be sending approximately 150 EURO’s to the Khao Lak Community Appeal, which will be used to buy school books for Bang Niang School’s new library.

Last quarter the Khao Lak Community Appeal donated bakery equipment to Home and Life to set them up with a small scale commercial business. An experienced local western chef offered his services to help them with instructions and recipes; he taught them to cater their produce to the tourists in the area, for example including black and whole wheat bread in their range, and helped them learn their way around the equipment and production organisation. After this they were up and running.

They continue to try and perfect some recipes, but they have started weekly deliveries to a few Khao Lak businesses and also some to Thai Muang businesses too – a more Thai populated area. The money from the sales of this produce will help the orphanage with their monthly running costs; it will also go some way to establishing a self-sustainable income.

August saw the final month in which the Khao Lak Community Appeal and Foundation for Education and Development worked together on the Community Health Worker(CHW) project. All in all, the project was a huge success.

In the final quarter of this project the Health workers continued their work visiting communities, giving health advice and check ups. Sam Pering from the Khao Lak Community Appeal was fortunate enough to join them on one of their daily visits to a few remote communities in KhokKloi. On this day she saw people who had very little who were willing to help each other for the benefit of their village. One village was so far remote that the sanitation facilities were awful. Sewage waste drained into the river where the children played and where water was often collected to wash clothes. To get some fresh water from a well a family member would have to walk up to 3 kilometres to the well and then carry the water back by foot.

Due to the fact that the villages are remote, and the sanitation is so very bad, illnesses, diseases and infections are frequent and difficult to remedy quickly. Now that these communities are provided with a trained community health worker (provided by FED and supported by KLCA), usually a local person who has been trained to fit this position, communities now have someone and somewhere immediate to go for basic medical care.

Lady, the woman who often provides translation and is a trained community health worker, is an invaluable asset to the project. Burmese migrants are often subject to dangerous jobs; these dangerous jobs often result in a worker needing emergency medical assistance in a hospital. Due to Lady’s basic healthcare knowledge and language skills she is able to help them with translations at the hospital, making them feel more relaxed and helping them to get the correct medical care. This quarter Lady helped a man who had been cutting grass and had an eye injury from a small object striking him in the eye, amongst other people.

Towards the end of this project the community health workers had a 2 day training session in which they could share their fieldwork experiences with each other, give feedback from the communities and discuss how to give health education to their community. During the workshop the health workers were taught about Hepatitis B, how to treat and prevent it, the nervous system and were also taught to continually learn about healthcare. FED invited Dr.ThihaMaungMaung from the famous Mae Daw Clinic to speak with the CHWs; he also worked closely with the health team and shared his experiences during the workshop.During this quarter the community health workers visited Song Phra village again after their first visit in the previous quarter. This time they decided that Song Phra village should be included in the Community Health worker programme and agreed to visit bi-monthly. In this village the health team saw one child who had never received any vaccinations and consequently he has become disabled and can’t walk. His skin is blue and he can’t speak. Now he is 2 years old. The health workers discussed health options with his parents and provided them with information and a referral to PhangNga hospital. They asked his mother why she hadn’t taken him to the hospital, and she said she gave birth to him at the plantation and didn’t go to the hospital to get vaccinations for him because she was afraid of the police as she didn’t have a work permit card. On the day when KLCA visited some communities with the health workers,wealso visited a community who had a child in a similar situation, only this time it was a little 5 year old girl who could not walk or talk. She was fairly neglected as it seemed no one really knew how to take care of her. Not only could she not walk or talk, meaning communication was difficult, but also her growth appeared stunted, she looked about 3 or 4 rather than her 5 years.

Due to the lack of education amongst these remote communities people are not made aware about health care procedures and medical treatments; they are often ignorant to simple ways to stay healthy and protect their families. This means that they are more vulnerable to illnesses, infections and diseases. Now that the Community Health Worker project is efficiently running well, this will be a problem that can be solved for many migrant workers in the future.

Not only do the health workers visit these people and care for them when needed, but they also take the time to explain how health problems can be prevented and treated. Health Education is another aspect to the CHW project that has been taken into consideration and carried out, and is a vital feature that will help generations to come.

The community health worker project was a success in training 13 health workers in basic health care. These health workers visited communities regularly and dispersed medicines where needed, they were continually educated and reviewed and one health worker was even sent to the Mae Sot clinic for further training.

Originally the community health worker project was intended to provide health care to approximately 3000 Burmese migrants, however, due to the efforts and diligence of the health team they have ended up helping many more people. Thanks to these community health workers, sponsored by the Khao Lak Community Appeal, thousands of migrants were helped who might have otherwise had no access to health care at all. The project was a huge success by giving health care services and education to remote communities and people that really needed it. The community health worker project continues under new funders.

GHRE United Learning Centre(Land Donation)
The Foundation for Education and Development (FED) is currently in the process of buying land and building FED’s Unified Learning Centre. The Unified Learning centre project is financially supported by the Khao Lak Community Appeal, Annika Linden Foundation and Child’s Dream Foundation.

An Agreement to Sell and Purchase Land was signed between FED and the seller on June 2nd 2010. A deposit was paid to the seller on May 27th 2010 andthe balance is to be paid to the vendor once the deeds of the land have had their name fully legally changed to Foundation for Education and Development. FED expects that to happen at the end of December 2010, beginning January 2011. Land clearing and levelling was conducted from June 11th 2010 to August 17th 2010. It was originally scheduled from May 27th 2010 to June 11th 2010. The start date was delayed until the Agreement to Sell and Purchase Land was signed. The clearing and levelling took longer than expected because of heavy rain.

Name change of the land title deed to FED is still in process. Currently FED is in the middle of a one month “complaints” period where the public or government is able to contest the plans put forward. So far there have been no complaints.

Final payment for the land will be paid once the land title deed is on FED’s name. Construction will not start before the land title deed is obtained. They expect FED’s name to be on the deed by December/January so that construction can start in January 2011.

FED is waiting on quotations and building designs from three different companies. Once obtained, they will be provided to CDF for them to decide on a company.

In the past 3 months the Health workers have visited a community that had previously never been visited by a medical team nor had any health education. The community health workers are now in discussion with them about regular visits. In this village they found one case of a child who had had no medical attention since he was born; his mother was afraid to visit a doctor as she has no documents or ID cards. This has resulted in the child being disabled and very sickly, but the health workers having been talking to her about the best action to take.

The project that the Khao Lak Community Appeal supports for the Burmese migrants continues to be a huge success. The community health workers visit 5 communities each week and 9 communities twice a month in patient’s homes and on rubber plantations, fishing and construction work sites. This quarter the health team at GHRE have visited the health workers and have worked with them to carry out medical checkups on community members. It is clear that through this project, the health workers are being constantly educated and supported to build a strong and committed health worker team for Burmese migrants.

The project that the Khao Lak Community Appeal supports for the Burmese migrants has been a huge success. Medicine and support is getting out to the wider community of Phang Nga for this underprivileged minority, who previously had little or no support for Health Care. One big success story to come out of this project is the treatment of 100 Burmese Migrants who had malaria, or symptoms of it. If it wasn't for the Community Health Worker Project these people may never have been diagnosed, and even if they had been, they might not have been able to get the medicines needed.

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