Type
Construction of a house with dormitories
Budget
CHF 60’000
Status
Completed
Year
2012
Province de Chiang Rai
The Foundation The Sourire de Chiang Khong situated in the Province of Chiang Rai is an institution managed by a Swiss and a Thai who have been welcoming children coming from ethnic minorities of the North of Thailand since about 15 years.
These children live in the school during the school year and return to their homes during the holidays. They come for the most part from villages too far away to go to the school and public transports are non-existent or unaffordable. The Sourire de Chiang Khong wishes to offer the hospitality to around thirty additional young people but it requires to build a new house to accommodate them.
Given the extreme poverty and the heavy financial charges for their families, the children are sold to circles of prostitution or pedophilia. Those who leave the villages of their free will for cities as Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai or looking for jobs in Bangkok are condemned to pitiful working conditions and this because of their lack of education. It is to mitigate the difficulties which these mountain tribes have, where these two young women, Barbara and Prapapone, created the home of the Sourire de Chiang Khong which welcomes at present 120 children of the region of Chiang Rai to allow them to go to school and to acquire knowledge and vocational training, which will allow them to be independent and to help their close relations.
After the visit of the home which is extremely well cared for and well organised, we decided to finance the construction of a house with dormitories for CHF 60 ’000.- similar to the existing one. The people in charge of the building are local professionals and their work is followed by the Directors of the home.