Read about some of the projects in some of the Esarn villages that the ATF finances. If you or your company would like to help out by supporting a specific project, please contact us. Except where mentioned, all of the projects listed below have been allocated funds from our general resources, but any project underwritten by a donation means that we can release this money for other similar projects.

This is the canteen at Ban Nong Kan School This school has 210 pupils, and has a new Principal - Mr Somsak - who would like to build a new dining room for the children, as at present the facilities for eating and cooking are extremely poor, and unuseable in wet weather.

The school has the land on which to build the canteen, and the parents are helping to renovate the school, but progress is very slow due to lack of money: they are already trying so hard to help so it would be unlikely they would be able to raise the money for this new project.

They have submitted plans and an estimate, which has been approved and a cheque will be presented during our next visit in January, so that work can commence.

The sala, or village hall in Ban Nong Rang (Ajahn Laow's village), where the ATF began in 1990, is getting rather tumbledown. For a photograph of the present Sala, go to Village Life . As with English village halls, the sala is the focus of village life in Thailand, acting as community centre, school assembly hall, meeting place, etc.

Some years ago the villagers decided to rebuild the sala, got as far as this photograph (February 2004), and ran out of money, so the project has ground to a halt. PM Laow has personally conducted a huge amount of fundraising towards the cost of finishing the project, but there is still a large shortfall that the ATF will underwrite, once estimates and plans have been submitted.

This project will be of benefit to the whole community, not just the children of the village.

Many of the schools in the remote parts of Esarn have lakes where they farm fish for school dinners.

Nongmuang Nogtae School have built pens out of bamboo as part of their fish farm, but the bamboo is rotting. They would like to replace it with a more durable steel framework.

A donation of the full cost of this project has been made to the Foundation, so it can now go ahead: we will present the scholl with the money in January.