Welfare Projects
SILC is proud to support several projects that benefit the local community:
FORDEC (Foundation for Rehabilitation & Development of Children and Family)
The foundation was formed on February 14, 1998, St. Valentine's Day to realize and extend Love symbolized by St. Valentine and transformed into action to bring about the material and spiritual needs to all distressed to uplift their living conditions in human dignity. The word "Dec" in Thai means "child". So "FORDEC" means "For the sake of a child" The Foundation has taken the motto: "One's love and concern; for all distressed".
Fordec is currently running 2 day-care centers, Mahawong and Chanukroh which SILC support. Take a look at our galleries to see what fun we have! Visit FORDEC's website to find out more.
Christian Care Foundation for Children with Disabilities (CCD)
The Christian Care Foundation for Children with Disabilities (CCD) has been providing care and support to abandoned children with disabilities in Thailand regardless of gender, nationality, creed or religion since 1986. CCD’s projects include:
Day-care Centres in the state-run orphanages in Pakkred, just north of Bangkok, where CCD run 3 centres working with children and young men and women, encouraging their independence and enriching their lives.
Rainbow House, a purpose-built care home for 30 to 40 children with disabilities, where we provide specialist facilities, resources and individualized education programmes all in a loving environment. Most of the residents attend local schools so CCD use Rainbow House facilities to run a fourth day-care centre during the daytime for more children from the government homes as well as those residents who are preparing to start school.
Community Based Rehabilitation Programmes (CBR) to help families caring for disabled children at home in rural Thailand. The hope is that as CBR programmes expand, families will be better educated, equipped and empowered, and ultimately less likely to leave their children at an orphanage.
For further information visit the CCD website.
SILC are long term partners in CCD's work and over the years have helped to provide specialist equipment for individuals such as wheelchairs and cushions, helpied to fit out a 'Soft-Play' room at Rainbow House and to sponsor outings for dozens of children with disabilities to places such as Siam Oceanworld. As well as all this SILC members have also spent many, many hours volunteering at Rainbow House, supporting the staff there in their ministry to some of the most marginalised individuals in Thailand.
Thai Song
SILC has been supporting Thai Song for the past two years, shortly after this fantastic initiative was co-founded by two young University graduates, Brittany Fox and Panida Ponkapin. Thai Song is a fair trade business dedicated to empowering Thai women to overcome poverty, improve their community and better their environment, by providing them with a dignified source of employment. The project is based in the Ma Ha Thai Song slum community, which consists of around 300 residents, living in makeshift houses built over a highly polluted swamp in the Prawet area of Bangkok. The women in the community are taught how to handcraft high quality eco-friendly products out of recycled materials collected in their neighbourhood. To date they have developed three styles of hand-crocheted bags made out of recycled, washed plastic shopping bags and, more recently, a range of earrings made from recycled aluminium cans and drinking straws. These items are offered for sale mainly in the USA through Thai Song’s website and in this way every item produced provides much needed income, helps build confidence and leads to self-sufficiency for the women in the community. SILC members have been supporting this great cause by collecting used plastic shopping bags and aluminium drink cans. These are delivered to Thai Song every few months. Furthermore, SILC recently donated a sum of money from their fundraising to purchase a much needed heavy-duty sewing machine for Thai Song to use in making up their finished bags -- a gesture which has significantly improved their productivity.
The Mercy Centre
The Mercy Centre works to help the children and communities of the many slums of Bangkok. Together with our neighbours in the slums we create simple-but-progressive solutions that touch the lives of thousands of the poor every day. We build and operate schools, improve family health and welfare, protect street children’s rights, combat the AIDS crisis, respond to daily emergencies, and offer shelter to orphans, to street children, and to children and adults with AIDS – always together, hand in hand and heart to heart with the people we serve. Prakkasamai is one of the 22 Preschools set up by Mercy Centre (21 in Bangkok metro-area, 1 in Koh Lao, Ranong). Visit The Mercy Centre's website to find out more.
