CS300 : Your Support Means The World To Them

2008-06-29

Streetkids Sponsorship : Jai  

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Jai is a beautiful girl 10 year old girl whose charming smile hides a sad past. Her entire family was torn apart by drugs, forcing the mother to re-marry. Although Jai now lives with her step father, her step father offers little care as she is not his natural daughter.

Growing up from a drug devastated family to a family stricken with poverty. Jai struggles in her daily school life, every night she studies under a single flickering candlelight to complete her school work.

Jai is now up for sponsorship. Sponsorship is a yearly commitment to enable these children to resume normalcy in life. The sponsorship cost just SGD78 monthly.


To sponsor Jai, please contact me at eugene@radion-international.org

2008-06-27

CDP : Find The Truck  

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This should be obvious enough. :) If you still cannot see it. Its time to change monitors or its time for lasik.

Hmong : Nong Khai  

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We visited some Hmong Lao refugees residing in Nong Khai and did a needs assessment in that area.

These are the details.

-155 Refugees. All are holders of a valid UNHCR refugee status certificate.
-Males and females are separately housed in 2 rooms. Each measuring only 9mX9m.
-Rooms are overcrowded with no proper sleeping area.
-Locked up for 22 hours each day with 2 hours of exercise time.
-Managed the same way as illegal immigrants.
-Have been awaiting news of repatriation for almost 2 years.

Needs :
- Food (Both adults and children are given the same portion of food which is hardly enough)
- Children lack education
- Children above 1 and below ages of 2 have no access to semi-solid food.

We are planning to seek governmental approval to provide food augmentation as well as improve living conditions by providing education programs for both adults and children.*

*Subjected to governmental approval.

2008-06-25

Hmong Lao Refugee Sites  

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For those who are keeping tabs on the refugee outreach status and are mystified by the additional camps. Let me explain a little bit more about them.

1 ) Hmong Refugee Camp (Phetchabun)
This refugee camp was formed after thailand received a massive influx of refugees from Laos and they basically consolidated all the refugees here to await a screening process. To filter the economic migrants from the ones who are really asylum seekers.

2 ) Hmong Refugee Camp (Nong Khai)
This refugee camp is one which the military use as a temporary holding before the Hmongs are deported or resettled back in Laos. Some have called it the Nong Khai detention centre as well.

This week RADION will be doing a assessment mission to Nong Khai to determine the pressing needs of these people.

3 ) Hmong Refugee Camp (Site X)
This refugee camp is special because the refugees live in a confined area and not behind barbwires. A good 1/3 of them have been certified as authentic refugees while the remaining receive asylum seeker status from UN.

We know the location, but we are unable to release these details fully as we have been told that the location of this camp needs to be low profile as they are staying on special grant. If more refugees flood down to this area and signature gets too high, the government will be obliged to send them to the main refugee camp in Thailand.

We have done a needs assessment on this area and will publish the report shortly.

2008-06-23

CDP : Pictures  

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Here we go. Click on the picture to see the full sized version.


CDP : Phetchabun Intergrated Farm  

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Community Development Project (Phetchabun Integrated Farm)

In the small plot of land, we are attempting to meet some 200% of our current dietary requirements. We are launching into farming rice, fruits, vegetables, fish, poultry and pork all within this area.

All these will be staffed by destitute farmers who are struggling to make ends meet. We will be also building a few houses to provide accommodation for the destitute who do not have a shelter over their heads.

In order to lower electrical cost, we are looking toward solar power or wind powered set-ups. If anyone has expertise on this area, please contact me.

2008-06-22

New Milestone Acheived  

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Today RADION reached a new milestone in our outreach work in Thailand.

We secured an extended lease for beautiful1.4 hectare plot of land to conduct semi-intensive farming.

The objective of this project is to create jobs and accommodation for destitute villagers and provide sufficient food resources to the needy. Returns of this project will flow back to investors and also ministry, to expand our outreach efforts.

This project will essentially cushion the impact of rising food prices among the poor villagers.

Streetkids : Jong  

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Normally for streetkids or destitute children, we would launch rescue attempt or outreach attempts to reach them. But for Jong it was kinda different. She came for our mass children's outing and she just went home quietly not expecting anything. In some ways, it was she that found us.

Only of late, when Jong came back, we were alerted about her family's plight. She comes from a single parented family and just yesterday when we spoke to the mom about putting her on sponsorship. The mother was at the verge of tears as she was not able to provide much for the daughter.

We are now putting Jong on our streetkids (Children-at-risk) program to help her through her studies.

Jong's sponsorship is SGD78 per month and its a year long commitment.

Note : Jong has been sponsored.

2008-06-19

Refugees @ Site 2  

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As the location of these refugees are sensitive. I'll just name the place as Site 2.

When i arrived, I was greeted by the leaders and that was not the part that stirred me. What stirred me was the act of one single man.

A man in his early 30s went out to a nearby provision shop and purchased bottled water for our team. Now each bottle is worth 7Baht and Singaporeans will not even have to blink an eye to fork out that sum. But this man was an asylum seeker which just arrived, he had hardly enough to feed his family.

But when we arrived, he just took the little he had and bought our team these bottles of water. He walked all the way from an other village when he heard that we are Christians. I insisted that we paid for the drinks and i took out the money. But this man simply refused.

He just said "What kind of Christian will I be if you can come all the way and I cannot even buy you a drink."

Now, how many of us can actually take half your day's wage to buy a stranger a something. Just with the gesture alone, i feel compelled to try my best to assist that community as a whole.

2008-06-16

RADION : Refugee Outreach  

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We have just returned from our needs assessment of a group of refugees living near bangkok.

Among this 400 strong group, only about a third of them have been granted refugee status by UNHCR and the remaining two thirds have been given the status of an asylum seeker.

Families which have been granted refugee status are given a small allowance by UNHCR but the remaining do not have such a privilege.

When we arrived, we were greeted by the group leaders and we were shown around the compounds. The compounds were simple with access to electricity and water, however their pressing need was basic sustainance- food. They are hungry.

Each family (5-10pax) rents a small 5mX5m room for 1000baht and for those without jobs, it was impossible to make ends meet. It is very much like an open prison whereby they are not allowed to roam the out of the perimeters of the compound and as such, finding work was difficult.

They have asked if RADION is able to purchase land for the community and provide farming jobs. To do that we will require about SGD31,000 (7 plots of land)

Let me know if you guys have any other ideas through the shout box or my email at eugene@radion-international.org

2008-06-13

How Do You Out Give ?  

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Among all the village children we bring out, one child stands out among the rest. She is a 10 year old girl by the name of Jong.

Back in March, was the first time we came to know Jong and we brought Jong together with 80 children for a simple 2 day excursion but it means a whole world to this little girl. The simple gesture of love showered by the volunteer meant the world to her.

This is an extract of what Jong wrote to the volunteer : "Pii Ning, do you remember Jong ? Jong misses you very very much. Do you miss Jong ? When will you be coming back ? "

This month we organised another mass outing as part of RADION's outreach program. Jong turned up and was paired with another Singaporean volunteer. When the volunteer was about toleave, Jong made a gift for this volunteer telling her how much it meant to her.

Now, Jong came from a single parented family with hardly enough to eat every day, and with what she had, she made an elaborate gift for the volunteer. To the volunteer it would be just a small gift, but to Jong she probably had to skip meals just to save enough money to make that gift.


How do you out give ?

2008-06-11

Update : 11 June  

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We have completed the temporary roofing project and we are now looking at how to provide skill training for the lady.

We have completed 5 outreaches in a row, it was amazing. In a few minutes, the SCCC team will be heading down to Bangkok to catch their flight back to Singapore.

After that we'll be heading to another province to conduct a needs assessment. Keep us in prayer.

2008-06-04

A Broken House  

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Today is the third day where the campus crusade team has partnered us in our outreach efforts to the village.

Of the homes we visited today, one of them belonged to a lady who has 6 children. The oldest child was just 14 years old when he was involved in glue sniffing. This boy started borrowing money to feed his glue sniffing habit and when he was unable to repay the loan, his creditor took a long knife and slashed him at his home. He was caught shortly after and his throat was slit.

This mother now lives with her remaining children in an straw house with a damaged roof. All her children cuddle under a 2m X 2m plastic sheet to shelter from the rain.

RADION is looking at ways which we can assist her and her children on a sustained basis.

Amendment :
After the home visit we clarified that the boy's name is tuah and it was not because of a repayment issue. Instead it was another glue sniffing gang member who came over asking for a loan. When he did not have money to give him, the drug addict slashed him