Our Projects

We had quite a few projects planned while we were at the school.           

- Septic tank for the bathrooms

- Sinks for the bathroom
- Replace/update water system
- First Aid room
- Playground
- Grease trap and kitchen update
- Pave a walkway to bathroom
- Paint a mural

In addition to the construction projects we had multiple classes prepared for the children everyday, a health fair for the community, a fun fair for the children, vocational classes for the older students, and a community meeting planned to discuss what can be done in future years.  But most importantly, we started a relationship with this community.  Youthlinc likes to stay at an international site for 3-5 years.  That way we can make lasting improvements and accomplish long term goals.  We are not at a site do all the work and hand people things they need.  As Judy said, “we don’t practice drive by aid”.  The aim is to help the community help themselves…to teach and to build a sustainable relationship that can go on improving the lives of the community long after we leave.  Once we got started on the projects all of the kids and other community members would come around to help us work and it was evident that they were genuinely grateful and interested in the work we were doing.

I was the mentor for the cultural exchange committee.  We were kind of in charge of painting a mural for the school.  We wanted to include the students and have them contribute to most of the design and the actual painting.  We bought supplies at a local hardware store and got started.  We were very lucky to have some very artistic people in our group and the backdrop to our mural formed very quickly.  The idea was to paint Thailand and then have the students add things that were important to them, like their family, pets, friends, ect.  Then we had everyone add their hand print as leave on two big trees painted on either side of the mural.  The complete painting took about 4 days.  The outcome was pretty adorable and the kids had such a good time painting.

One afternoon Shae and I decided we wanted to teach a class.  Shae is a teacher in Salt Lake and had prepared a lesson plan previously with her students.  Her class had put together “All About Me” books for the children in Thailand.  The lesson was to teach the Thai children English descriptive words to describe their lives and make their own "All About Me" books.  Then we would take their books back to Shae’s classroom.

Our group also had a health fair for the community and brought school supplies for the classrooms.

We accomplished a lot and had a pretty amazing time doing it!