Construction and equipment of a school for sea gypsies

Kho Lao is an island located 45 minutes boat ride off the coast of Thailand. There are approximately 45 households of Moken on Kho Lao, including 120 children. These people live on the beach and there is no area for cultivation, no fresh water, no electricity and, until HDF’s arrival in 2008, no school. HDF established the Mercy pre-school on the island for the 3 to 6 year old children which is running Monday through Friday.

HDF has initiated a school lunch and health program. First aid is provided to each child according to their needs. All children had intestinal worms and were given two doses of de-worming pills and solution. At present there are 45 children attending the Mercy school in the morning and 65 people attending adult education classes in the afternoons.
At the same time HDF has provided assistance to the older children going to the government primary school on a separate area of the island with a Thai population by giving them the necessary school uniform and a ten baht a day school allowance. Without this assistance these children would be unable to attend school.

There was a pressing need to relocate the school as the old shack school has been repeatedly flooded as the rising coastal tides have increased over the past several years.
The Project
Thanks to Jan & Oscar Foundation, a new school over the water was built in January 2013 in a more secure location, several hundred meters from the present shack used as a classroom. The school is 8 x 16 meters or 128 square meters in size.

Built of concrete, it is based on nine concrete piles and is standing three meters over the high water. This type of stilt house over water is a traditional Moken construction and resolves the issue of no access to property on dry land. The new school building includes a toilet, a kitchen and a teacher’s room. The cost of the construction : CHF 60’000.- collected during our charity gala 2011 at Knie Circus.

The school needed to be equipped in solar panels, water pumps, tanks of drinking water and a care center. This equipment was completed at the end of 2013.
The community formed by the children going to the governmental school on the land also needed a new dormitory and to raise its ground because of the floods. The work was achieved at the end of 2013.

It is our preious charity event that has allowed to finance this new project in the amount of CHF 60’000.-.