Catch of the day

The last few days the big lake at Baan Nana has been emptied to catch fish and also clean the lake.

The draining took over 2 days and saw some very big fish caught!

This was also a good opportunity for the bottom of the lake to be cleaned of the various bits of stuff that is usually hidden under the water!

Christmas Day at Baan Nana

Christmas Day at Childlife was celebrated with a beautiful meal and special food.

As Christmas isn't an official holiday in Thailand most of the children spent the day at school. In the evening they were treated to a great meal of fried basil and rice with a fried egg. The kids also made some doughnuts and had some special treats like prawn crackers, wafer biscuits and oranges.

In the lead up to all the Christmas festivities which will be held on Saturday 29th, we made 2 Christmas trees and decorated them with the kids creativity!

Stay tuned for our article about Christmas celebrations later this week.

Seeing organic

On the weekend, 25 children and some staff and volunteers headed for a trip to Ban Thaton to visit our friends at the Mae Kok River Village Resort to see their organic farm project they have been running since 2002.

During the visit we learnt about the effects of chemical farming and the benefits of organic farming. We also took a tour of their extensive organic farm which has a huge varieties of fruits, vegetables and animals.

After the tour we were treated to a beautiful lunch (using vegetables from the garden we had just been through) over looking the river.

The trip allowed us to form a great contact with the teacher and coordinator of the organic farm and we look forward to working with them in the future to help our children gain more skills and improve our agriculture programme at the shelter.

Activities all round!!!

Last weekend the children at Childlife were treated to a range of activities from two groups of students that visited the shelter.

On Saturday a group of students from a Chiang Rai university came to do some performances and play some games with the children.

The following morning a group of students from Rotaract Club of Univerisity Technology of PETRONAS visited the shelter to run a range of activities and games as well as give each of the children some coloured pencils and a pencil box.

Thanks to these groups of students for providing hours of fun for our children.

Dental checks for the kids

Last weekend the health checks continued with the kids recieving general dental checks thanks to some dentists who visited Childlife from Spain.

As well as checking the children's teeth they also donated new toothbrushes and toothpaste to all the children and gave them a lesson about dental hygiene and how to brush your teeth properly. They also spent time with the staff so they can keep an eye on the kids and check they keep up with their dental health!

We thank the visiting dentists for their visit and helping our children.

BNN Post 5 - Oct/Nov/Dec

Please find below the link for the latest edition of the BNN Post including the latest news in our blog articles.

http://www.childlife-maesai.org/newsletters/Edn5_OctNovDec.pdf

With the holiday silly season upon us a feature of this edition is our Holiday Gift Campaign to support our 'Dream of Border Children' campaign to help us raise fund to build our new shelter.

The winter season is well upon us with the children rugging up against the chilly mornings and evenings.

Being the holiday season we have busy elves wrapping gifts for the children. We thank the various people who donated items for the children so they would not miss out :)

This will be the final BNN Post for 2007 and we'd like to thank you for your interest and support and look forward to providing you with more updates in the New Year.

Please note, the links to the blog articles may not be active unless you have the latest edition of Adobe. If the links are not active paste the link into your webbrowser or alternatively visit our blog page at http://childlifemaesai.blogspot.com/

We would love you to pass this email onto any of your family or friends who would be interested in our activities. If they would like to be added to our mailing list please email mailto:childlifemaesai@gmail.com

Sports Carnival Fun!!!

Last Sunday to Tuesday the children at Baan Nana had lots of fun at the annual Sangkhong School Sports Carnival.

The carnival involved running, football, volleyball, boules and a great modified version of netball where the person holding the net plays a great role in the game!

The kids at Baan Nana had been training hard in the lead up to the carnival which saw many of them excel and take home lots of medals.

Thanks Leni :)

Last week Childlife said thanks and goodbye to Leni who volunteered with us for four months. Leni was a volunteer through Global Youth UK, aiming to assist Childlife to build capacity and long term sustainability.



During her time here Leni organised the fantastic and fun Akha Swing Festival, ran a clay workshop and worked on improving Nana Buffet and Restaurant.


As well Leni provided great support in the office with fundraising and correspondence.

Her big beautiful smiles and happy face will be missed by everyone at Baan Nana :)

Anatta and Childlife medical weekend

This weekend Childlife welcomed Anatta who hosted a medical weekend which saw all our children receive a medical check and provided with the necessary medical follow up care.

The clinic was very timely with over 50% of our children needing follow up treatment including 4 who will need to undergo operations. With the end of the rainy season and beginning of the winter the children had many skin infections and other ailments.

We thank Cornelia, Jeri, Mary and Deborah for visiting Childlife and hosting the medical weekend for our children as well as providing the support to ensure all the children’s cases can be followed up. We also thank them for their financial donations as well as art supplies and musical instruments.

Anatta World Health and Outreach is a non profit and non denominational organization that was founded by Dr. Cornelia Santschi in July 2006. In its beginning stages Anatta consists of a small group of health care professionals and educators dedicated to providing medical and educational equipment and resource support to deserving and under-supported organisations worldwide, operating in impoverished circumstances. For more information visit their website

We'd also like to thank Christoph, a medical student from the US who assisted with organising as well as helping during the medical weekend. In addition to volunteering his time we thank him for purchasing 2 pairs of glasses for children whose examinations showed they required them.

Childlife is looking forward to working with Anatta to develop a well rounded medical programme to assist our children to receive improved medical care and attention.

Thanks Zoe

This week Childlife said goodbye to Zoe who volunteered with Childlife for 4 weeks through i-to-i. During her time Zoe taught english at the local Sangkhong School including teaching the kids how to make an english breakfast, also enjoyed by many of the staff at the school!!!
Zoe also spent some great time at the shelter playing and doing many cool activities with the kids.

Zoe's great energy and will be missed by all at Childlife.