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Ann Danello - Thailand
- 1. Human Development FoundationMercy Centre Bangkok, Thailand Ann Danello Human Development Foundation The Human Development Foundation Mercy Centre focuses its work on helping men, women, and especially children in Bangkok’s many slum communities. Specifically, the HDF: • builds and operates schools for slum children • works to improve family health and welfare • fights to protect street children’s rights • helps to combat AIDS in the slums • responds to daily local emergencies, and • offers shelter to orphans, street children, and adults and children with AIDS Working for the HDF in Ranong As a volunteer for the Human Development Foundation, I: • Taught English at a makeshift school on a Bangkok construction site. Many of the students were children of Cambodian immigrant workers, and did not know enough Thai to attend any other school. • Taught English, cooking, sewing, art, and music at the Janusz Korczak school, a vocational school founded specifically for the specialized education of children from the Klong Toey slum. • The school was named after the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit, a Jewish pediatrician and children’s book author who ran an orphanage for young Jewish children in Poland during the Holocaust. • Tutored promising young slum students for admission and scholarships to United World Colleges. Working for the HDF in Bangkok 1. The incredible staff and children at the HDF Mercy Centre, and the amazingly kind people of Thailand. 2. The Benjamin N. Duke Scholarship Program and all the wonderful members of Duke’s OUSF team, without whom this experience would not have been possible. 3. My parents, my brother, and the rest of my family, who have shown me an unbelievable and unfailing amount of support. 4. My fellow B.N. Scholars of the Class of 2015—my seven best friends who have always dared me to dream big. With Appreciation To: While in Thailand, I was living and working in the Klong Toey slum of Bangkok, which, with over 100,000 residents in only five square miles, is the largest slum in all of Thailand. The people in Klong Toey find work within the slum, in construction or in food service, although many are unemployed. Slum residents are discriminated against in the rest of Bangkok, often denied jobs outside the slum and even more sadly, frequently denied medical care or horrifically overcharged at Bangkok hospitals. Taxi drivers would even sometimes refuse to drive me back to the area because of the negative stigma associated with this particular slum. I grew to have immense respect for the hard working residents of Klong Toey, and gained an increased appreciation for the way I grew up and how well off our country is compared to the rest of the world. Life in Bangkok While so many wonderful parts of my ten weeks in Thailand are easier to express with a grin, a few of my favorite memories are: • During my stay, the HDF Mercy Centre was visited by the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services and a number of members of the Naval Public Health Service Corps—an exciting day to be an American in Thailand. • I tutored an extremely dedicated and enthusiastic young Thai student named Aun, who was able to pass her entrance examinations to the United World College in Norway and is now happily studying there. • In my last week, I was complimented by my Thai coworkers on the substantial improvement in my tolerance of spicy foods. • I had the most amazing time traveling around Thailand—to Ayutthaya, Chiang Mai and Phuket—with fellow B.N.s Chad and Dominique. My time in Thailand taught me a great deal about myself as well. • I’ve learned that I can be happy living with very little as long as I have friends surrounding me and work that means something to me. • I’ve learned that I adore working with children, and have discovered some of the intricacies of interaction with them (for instance, how to bribe them with toys and food). • I’ve gained a greater sense of independence, and clarity for how I want to develop as a person in the future. • I came away with the inexplicable feeling that, somewhere along the way, I grew up. Experiential Highlights and Lessons Learned I spent a week cooking, teaching, and doing anything to help out at a satellite location of the HDF in the Ranong province of Thailand, about a nine hour drive southwest of Bangkok. This HDF outshoot was created in response to the circumstances of a certain ethnic group called the Mokens, also referred to as Sea Gypsies, living on an island called Koh Lao. They are a historically nomadic people that previously lived only on boats in the Andaman Sea between Thailand and Myanmar before modern governments attempted to assimilate them and settle them on land. The Moken people are stranded, in a sense, because Thai and Burmese governments restrict their movement, and are reluctant to grant them citizenship to either country. From a cultural standpoint, the Moken people are incredible. They walk unharmed along shores littered with broken glass, barnacle-covered rocks and sharp shells and they swim as fast as fish. Some of the Moken village elders are such brilliant divers that they can dive forty meters down and walk along the sea bottom, picking mussels and oysters as they go for four or five minutes before they have to come back up for air. However, the Moken people on Koh Lao are having to adapt to the modern world, and did not have access to fresh water, electricity, toilets, or schools before the HDF offered its assistance. There are now two schools for Moken children, and teachers and other volunteers who bring fresh water and food to the island every day.