Projects - Baan Ngaow Culture - Updated ! |
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October 2008
Water issue at the building in Baan Ngaow has been resolved with water supply from the well. The building is equipped with basic cooking utensils such as a hot plate, rice cooker, microwave and water boiler, Internet has been installed also.
Surrounding land has been cleared and the construction for the activity hall and on-site accommodation for staffs/volunteers has been started. Children from nearby area start to visit us at the building. Besides playing, they help us with some simple cleaning tasks such as collecting litter and the falling coconuts. The children aged between 8-16, most of them dropped out from school because the parents cannot afford their lunch cost. Some of these kids speak Thai, but most of them can’t, so we start talking to them in Thai and encourage the peers who attended school to speak in Thai during their game.
By Tham Guat 
Septerber 2008
The building in Baan Ngaow now has lighting and fans. Surrounding land has been cleared to ready a place where on-site accommodation for staff and volunteers can be built. Providing a reliable source of water remains a challenge. To date, rain must be collected in large jars (see photo). A relationship with a nearby school that also helps Burmese children has been established in hopes of cooperating in ways that can make for a better learning environment. The other school has one teacher for over 50 students in a classroom. Other than this disadvantageous teacher/student ratio, CNF is learning that subject matter must be geared toward hands-on, practical skills. If only basics such as math, history and languages are taught, children tend to drop out, knowing that their illegal status will never permit their receiving certification attesting to course work. CNF plans to cooperate by providing traditional cultural subjects such as arts, music and handicrafts and also agriculture instruction and food culture supplementing core curriculum with afternoon and weekend activities. By Linda Quinet
