West Gone East: Jan

It is hard to believe how fast time is going as we have become more active at Kids Ark. It is a very good place to "volunteer" as there are many tasks that are in need of being done. The focus of KA is to help children complete their education, as a way out of poverty and towards a better life. Of course "helping" means many things, and the money is not unlimited so compromises need to be found. My excuse for not writing the blog more often is that when I get home from KA in the evening I am just too tired to think! It is a positive kind of fatigue in that each day we get closer to finishing a project, or perhaps just able to complete a simple task like going to the market to buy 40 plates, forks, spoons and cups to send to the school in the village. I also went with a former school superintendent to buy text-books for the same school.

Many of the projects have grown out of requests from some very committed teachers in the schools, along with input from the KA staff who visit with the sponsored children, their teachers and caregivers four times a year. We say caregivers as many of the children's primary parents have died of AIDs so they are being cared for by grandparents or relatives. One of the primary objectives of Kids Ark is to keep the children in their villages with the people they have grown up with as they continue with school. It is hard enough to lose one's parents but then to have to go to an orphanage is particularly difficult for the children.

Basically, 5 Kids Ark Thai staff members visit almost 300 children 4 times a year which is 1200 visits per year! Visits are not driving up the street to the local school either. There are a few students in Chiang Mai but most of the students are anywhere from 10 miles to 4 hours away. Since Rita and Allan who started Kids Ark are from Sweden most of the sponsors are from Sweden, and twice a year the staff translates the 2 page student reports which they complete in Thai into English, and then Rita does a handwritten Swedish summary to every sponsor! One of the long term projects in our view, is to expand the fund raising to other countries such as the US.

Ron Witzke who lives in Harrisville and who told us about Kids Ark left at the beginning of February to help his sick mother. Ron has moved the accounting from a Swedish accounting system that no one but Allan could use to Quickbooks, which at times seems just as foreign! We call it Slowbooks as the program is not a shining example of efficient programming! Ed Kelly, Ron's friend, who has a heart of gold came to Thailand to help Ron setup the books in November 2007, and the two of them spent all their waking hours entering data from 2007 and making the numbers match. Anyway by the time Ron left the reports were submitted to the auditors and the switch over had succeeded. Switching accounting systems is always "ugly" no matter what system, but doing it in Thai, Swedish and English adds several levels of complexity!

So much is going on and we have jumped into so many projects that we are almost working harder than when we were in the States. Especially Bev who used to come into Compucare a few hours a day now works from 9-5 or later! Still we both are challenged by the work, enjoy the staff and really admire the "philosophy" of the organization.

One day we might be in a meeting at a village near the Burmese border discussing fixing up a school, ordering text books, organizing transportation for the village children to the district school, setting a budget for additional money for lunches, and at the next meeting discussing the possible donation of water buffaloes and the advantages of a female buffalo to a male buffalo for the villagers.

Here is a list of our projects that are on-going:

Rewrite and print the KA brochure in English and Thai
Improve the website and add additional information on new projects
Change the website so handicrafts can be ordered on-line
Open an on-line account for credit card donations and add to website
Setup a database of the sponsors and students so the info can be merged to reports
Enter the 300 sponsors and students in English/Swedish/Thai into the database
Create a new website for the trekking business that the villagers started
Rewrite and print a new Trekking brochure
Redefine the pricing of the trekking packages
Organize the 1000s of pictures spread across 5 computers in the office
Setup some backup systems to protect data
rearrange the products showroom - Tom stays away from this one!
put a big sign on the showroom window to attract more customers; this one is completed with a home-made temporary sign!
look at putting advertisements for the show room in magazines
make sure all products are priced
fix network wiring - Completed!
Cooperation guidelines for KA with other people and agencies - Completed!

Many of these projects are close to being completed, but it takes time to get consensus for example on the language in the brochure or a decision on trekking prices.

But enough about "work"; there was the Flower Festival at the beginning of this month, and as to be expected the floats were absolutely gorgeous. Bev drooled over the orchids, but there were displays of many other brilliantly beautiful flowers as well.

Following are some photographs and videos of some fun events.
The first one is of the Flower Festival, and the second one is of the Valentine's Day Party at the House of Hope, which is a KA Project.
The last one is of buskers at the markets
Enjoy!

January 2008 Chiang Mai Flower Festival