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LIFE STORIES
We are currently caring for 42 children at the HuaDoi home. Each child brings a unique background and life story. Below you can read about some of these children. Their names have been changed and the pictures show other children to protect their identity.
Jennie, 9, and June, 7, are sisters.
They were both born in Thailand, but their family is Burmese. Like many others, they are refugees from Myanmar. They came to BCM together with their mother, who had a sad story to tell. She begged us to take care of her daughters and to protect them while her younger son stayed with her. She had just run away from her violent, alcoholic husband who wanted to sell his girls in order to get more money to buy alcohol. He tried to sell Jennie, the eldest, first. He locked her away in a cabin in the mountains and then went searching for a trafficker. He was offered around 7,000 SEK for her, which is a lot of money in Thailand.
After a few days, the mother began missing her daughter. By asking neighbors, she found out where the father had hidden Jennie while waiting for the trafficker to take her. That's when she made up her mind. She left her husband and ran away with her three children. Her husband still doesn't know where the children are. The girls are now safe at HuaDoi and enjoy going to school and having enough to eat.
In the summer of 2009, a little girl came to BCM. She was only two years old, and she was quite ill. Her young mother and father had come to Thailand as refugees from Myanmar, and shortly after their arrival, little Joanna was born in a Chiang Rai hospital. Life as refugees was hard. The father eventually got a job, but the mother was miserable. She ran away with another man and abandoned her little girl. The father brought Joanna to the construction site where he worked, but she wasn't safe there, so the father's boss brought her to BCM and asked for help.
Since then, Joanna has lived with the older girls at BCM. In the daytime she goes to a good preschool in the village, and she has adapted well. She receives lots of love and care from her older “siblings” who love her. Her father has had a difficult time and has only come to visit once since the summer. Her mother has been in prison for some time because she failed to perform various obligations required of refugees. It's an uncertain future for her parents, but Joanna is safe at BCM.
When Ahnan was five years old, his father died in a traffic accident. His mother, who was left on her own with two children, couldn't support both of them, so she came to BCM and asked if Ahnan could live there. Of course, we wanted to help the shattered family. Ahnan couldn't understand why his mother had left him, so he persistently waited for her to come back. During the first month he was often found sitting by the road crying and hoping his mother would return. Now that Ahnan has adapted to his new life he no longer yearns for home. He has made many new friends at HuaDoi. His mother, who lives nearby, comes to visit now and then, but Ahnan is happy at HuaDoi and wants to stay there.
When little Dave came to BCM, he was four years old and had HIV. He was extremely rowdy and never listened to anyone. The staff began wondering if he had some kind of mental disorder, so they took him to see the doctor. They found that Dave was completely deaf. He had lost his hearing due to an earlier case of meningitis.
Dave is now six years old, and it's time for him to start school. It has been hard to find a school which accepts a child who is both deaf and HIV-positive, but it looks like such a school has been found in Bangkok. Dave will benefit from living together with other deaf children in order to learn sign language and to make friends with those who face some of the same challenges he does.
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The BaanChivitMai Foundation, which means “Home for New Life”, is an independent local relief organization in Thailand that has saved several hundred children and youth from a life of prostitution and drug dealing. Through BCM's ministry, at-risk children and youth are provided with a safe place to live and the opportunity to attend public school. Your donation makes a difference by creating opportunities for children to have a new beginning and a new life.
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Phonenumbers:
Office: +66 53 712 357
Director: +66 816 811 661
BaanChivitMai, Chiang Rai
591 Moo 6, Ban Hua Doi
T.Tasai, A. Muang,
Chiang Rai 57000 Thailand
Email:
baanchivitmai@gmail.com
