Some background information: where the ATF works and how it began
Thailand is regarded by many westerners as the land of glittering temples, sun drenched beaches and happy smiling people. it is also seen to have a dynamic and rapidly advancing economy.
There is, however, another side to the picture. There is a region which has been rightly described as despised, neglected, rejected and almost forgotten: this region is known as Isarn in the country's inhospitable north east.

Here the overriding concern of the people is with survival. Mostly, they live by subsistence farming in a hostile landscape blighted, in season, by both flood and drought. Malnutrition and extreme poverty are commonplace. In Isarn the average per capita income is £200 per annum, about one third of the average for the rest of the kingdom. Children are needed to work on the land to help with their family's struggle for survival. In these circumstances, the education that could be the key to their future becomes an unaffordable luxury.
     

Life is hard indeed for most of Isarn's 18 million people. Many are forced to migrate to the large cities where, due to their lack of education, they can be easily exploited and can find only the most menial and low paid work.

This potential exploitation is most worrying and most damaging in the case of children and young people. Although the Government has implemented plans to develop the economy of the region, it will be many years before the effects of this will be felt by the children of the poor.

Education alone holds the key to liberation from the cycle of poverty and deprivation.

     

In 1990 a Thai monk, PM Laow Panyasiri, who was at the time living at the Buddhapadipa Temple in Wimbledon, got together with a group of Western Buddhists (notably Peter Robinson, who himself is now a monk in Thailand) to form what was to become the Anglo Thai Foundation.

PM Laow came originally from Isarn, and wanted initially to help children in his own village, particularly those who, like himself, were orphans. The work of the Foundation rapidly spread, and is now dedicated to helping children throughout many villages in Isarn to obtain the education that they so urgently need and so greatly desire.

 

Although the Foundation is Buddhist in origin, and a number of current Trustees are Buddhist, it is emphatically not a religious charity. Thailand's national religion is Buddhist, the majority of the population practice Buddhism, and hence most of the children we support are Buddhist, but this is not why we support them: we support them because of their need, irrespective of their religion.
The Foundation is sympathetic to the culture and religion of the country and seeks to support Thai children whatever their religion.

The Foundation is a registered charity, incurring very low expense in its administration, no-one receiving any payment whatsoever in respect of their work for the charity. Almost all of the money donated is used directly to enable poor children from Isarn to continue to complete their education. This includes such things as the provision of school meals and the funding of travel to school as well as the provision of writing materials etc. Often, even these simple necessities are beyond the means of these families. Thailand's education system is free until the age of 13, but poverty often prevents the poor taking advantage of this.

 

Each year some of our Trustees travel to Sisaket in Isarn, at their own expense, to personally supervise the distribution of the grants. ln 2007, some 320 Education Grants of between 2,800 and 4,500 baht were made to the children in the most need.  Some of our children have grown up and are now at College or studying at Khon Kaen University.  They receive Higher Education Grants of between 12,500 and 20,000 baht.
 

So far, however, we have been able to help only a tiny fraction of all those gifted and willing children who are so desperately deserving of our help. They are looking to you to offer them some hope of escaping from their lives of misery and possible exploitation.

They have the ability and the enthusiasm to succeed. All they need is a little help to set them on the road to a better life both for themselves and their dependents.

The lives of children just like this little boy have been changed immeasurably by your generosity. He has a regular sponsor and so everybody: the boy himself, his parents (if he has any), his school, the ATF and his sponsor, all know that his education is secure, at least for the next few years.

For less than £1 a week, you too can do the same for another Thai boy or girl. You are just one mouse click away from transforming a child's life.

All you have to do is click on this link to our donation page

In addition to giving personal grants to individual children, some of the money we raise is used to help schools with capital development projects, which they otherwise could not afford, in order to improve school facilities

We have built this library at one village school.

Other projects have included:

  • providing money for a village water well
  • the purchase of land on which a reservoir was created, from which the school now harvests fish to supplement school meals
  • a grant towards the expansion of a primary school in an extremely remote village to include secondary facilities, thereby enabling the children to continue their education.
 
 

This is the area where these children eat their school meal. Their headteacher has just been given the go-ahead to commence a project that he, the teachers and parents could only dream about:
a new school canteen, funded by the ATF - thanks to your generosity

 

If you would like to know more about the work of the Anglo-Thai Foundation, please contact us

If you would like to make a donation now, to help us to help children in Isarn please click here for a donation form,
If you would like to sponsor a child by making regular donations, please click here for a standing order mandate.