Volunteering in Rural Kanchanaburi
- Lucy and the lens
- Sep 6, 2018
- 4 min read
Back in 2009, this was the trip that triggered my wanderlust and made me realise that shy introverts can travel, too, and travel solo at that.
I bit the bullet and signed up for a month-long volunteering and exploring trip to Thailand with a company called International Student Volunteers. On checking their website today, they don’t seem to be operating for the 2018 season, but if they do stop operating altogether there are plenty of other travel companies offering volunteering in Asia. Just make sure to do some research into the ethics of the company - some arrange visits to ‘orphanages’ that cater specifically to tourists and their sense of charity, often using ‘ cute’ children who aren’t actually orphans at all but rather loaned to the orphanage for the day by their parents in return for free education and meals for their children. The rewards for the children obviously aren’t a bad thing in themselves, but the whole aim of the operation is to win sympathy that leads to donations and sponsorship from businesses, rather than giving the children a quality education.
Instead, I’d recommend choosing a residential project where you not only get to teach kids during the day but also get to see life at the orphanage after school hours - playing with the kids, eating dinner with them and helping with the general maintenance of the facilities. We got this and more at Moo Ban Dek orphanage in Kanchanaburi, a rural area in west Thailand not that far from Bangkok.
Moo Baan Dek (translating as Children’s Village School) is a registered non-profit project run by the Foundation of Children. It houses not only orphans but children from abusive families and those who would be forced into child labor otherwise. Read more about it here: www.childrensvillagethailand.org
Moo Baan Dek is special because not only is it a school, it also aims to help these children recover from the traumas of their earlier lives. One of the ways it does this is through its outdoor setting - the classrooms are mostly open-air in the middle of a forest, and a lot of the activities involve the positive impact of nature.
The school used to rely on donations but these days, it says, the economic situation in Thailand means they’ve had to turn to other ways of raising money - by hiring volunteer teachers, and by teaching children useful crafts such as drawing, weaving and batik-making during their art classes. The children get to sell their handiwork in the school’s shop to fund the school and get to keep some of the proceeds for themselves.
I had such a wonderful time volunteering as a teacher at Moo Baan Dek. Despite their tough beginnings, I’ve never met so many smiling, positive children with a desperate desire to learn as much as they can (such a huge contrast to a lot of the kids I’ve taught in England and Germany!). Teaching through games, songs, and even diagrams drawn in chalk on the classroom floor is also something that there just isn’t time for in mainstream western education.
And the loveliest thing about volunteering at Moo Baan Dek? We weren’t just teachers who disappeared at the end of the day - we were companions, too, who played games with the kids after school, helped serve them dinner and ate with them, tended the gardens, and slept next door.
We taught them some basic English and in return they taught us how to count to ten in Thai, how to paint a batik and how to plant a tree. They taught us how hugely respected the King and Queen of Thailand are, and that we should say thank you often to those who we’re grateful to.
The two most emotional moments during our trip still get me when I think back on them nearly 10 years later.
1. It was the Queen of Thailand’s birthday while we were there, and it was used as a celebration of gratitude towards mothers in general. Many of the children at Moo Ban Dek don’t have mothers, though, so it was instead a chance for the children to thank the Head of the orphanage. In a special ceremony, the Headteacher sat on her chair at the end of the room and each child approached her, knelt down and gave her a huge hug. As many of the children burst into tears as they said their thanks, it became clear that not only was she their Headteacher, she was also a hugely positive, nurturing mother figure for them, and they were genuinely thankful for her care.
2. For our final night at the orphanage, we planned to surprise the children with a dance that us volunteers had secretly choreographed and rehearsed. We got up on stage, did our dance to the most thunderous applause, and then jumped from the stage to dance with the kids - 3 three minutes of joyful mayhem. What we didn’t know was that they had a surprise for us, too - a thank you ceremony in which every child approached us and tied a white string onto our wrists as a gesture of thanks. The idea was that we should keep the bands on until they began to fall off naturally....but over fifty kids meant over fifty bracelets, so our wrists were looking comically busy by the end of it!
Volunteering in Asia is endlessly rewarding as long as you choose the right project - so do some research, look at testimonials, ask for information about the school you’ll be volunteering at. Prepare to be silly, prepare to be hugged a lot, and prepare to be taught more by the kids than you teach them.
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