New Life Outreach

Over the next few months, we're planning to negotiate with the authorities to allow us to conduct regular programs for the children. This will be in the form of songs and games, specially tailored to keep their little minds active.

Each short term MILK! mission cost us SGD600 and for now, we are targetting to launch 1 mission every month.

For our friends who wish to support a mission, please email me at eugene@radion-international.org

The MILK! outreach has been smooth-sailing. From the short clearance meeting with the immigration authorities to the food distribution, all is well. This outreach marks the 1st of our official outreach to these 155 Hmong refugees residing in the IDC.

For those who are not familiar, this IDC is normally closed to outsiders and its access is not easily granted due to the political sensitivity of this group of refugees.

During our fact finding trip last month, the refugees reflected to us that the food rations as well as milk was insufficient (especially for those 2 year children).

RADION rolled into action by initiating a MILK! mission in the IDC. In line with their need, we distributed cartons of noodles, milk as well as biscuits to augment their diets.

We will be planning towards a regular outreach in the area to focus on basic education and food augmentation. Limited pictures due to sensitivity. Will update shortly.

Tomorrow, we'll be heading north east to the border town of Nong Khai. This is the town which 155 Hmong refugees are being held indefinitely at the immigration detention center.

These refugees are normally given about 1 hour per day of "walking time" where they can walk around the compounds for that period. After which they would have to return to 2 small overcrowded rooms to spend the remaining 23 hours.

This round we have managed to obtain permission to conduct a small MILK! mission in the compounds and the commander has given us a 2 hour timeslot.

So do keep us in prayers :)

A 5-6 hour drive

*Mistake, it should be 2 hours of walking time instead of 1 hour. The authorities we spoke to mentioned that they are permitted 4 hours each day. We are checking on this discrepancy.

Just 2 days back, 5 of our ex-glue sniffing boys went back into glue sniffing, negating much of our rehabilitation efforts.

Through our talks with them, they confided in us that some of the boys still have an urge to sniff glue while others just joined in for the "fun". This was terribly disappointing after all the efforts to educate them on the harms of substance abuse.

The only positive news is that of all the P1 (glue sniffing) boys, 1 refused to join the group to glue sniff and we also managed to locate the peddler which sells these glue to the children.

For now, these 5 boys will be grounded for a month to keep them off the streets.

Allow me to divert away from the normal happy stories and instead write about some challenges we face on the ground.

We have a total of 11 children on the streetkids program, of which 6 of them come from substance abuse backgrounds (Mainly glue sniffing).

The rehabilitation has been successful for all the kids but one of our boys is still struggling to kick the habit. For close to 3 months, he stayed clean from glue sniffing and he was almost breaking the habit. And just last week, he fell back into glue sniffing.

I do not know if you understand how it feels when your entire team pours their hearts and souls into helping a person change and when we are so close to success, we need to go back to square one.

I remembered that when I took out the cane to punish the kid, I was not angry at the kid. In my heart was this heavy disappointment and with every stroke of the cane, my heart broke.

For those who think my work with these lives are easy, it is not.

Through all the challenges and heartbreaks, I look toward a not so far future where these streetkids will become change-makers- doctors, teachers, pastors, leaders etc etc.

And I dream of the day that when these streetkids grow up and tell their children in turn that it was a bunch of crazy people who came and gave them hope when the world gives up hope on them.

Today at church, I saw an old lady sitting in the front row.

She was the lady that we reached out during our home visitations.

In her old age, she was put out of her house by her own daughter, many days she would go hungry with hardly enough to eat. Many times when we visited her, she would be tearing telling us how much she loves her daughter and how she hopes that things will change.

Every week, some of Radion's sponsors would contribute a small pocket money for her to buy herself food and besides that she has no form of income at all.

What touched me the most today was when the offering bag was passed around. The ushers knew her financial situation and tried to avoid embarrassing her by skipping her. What happened next almost brought tears to my eyes.

I saw this old lady stretching out her hand towards the offering bag almost like saying "please, i want very much to give" with that the usher turned back and handed her the offering bag. She grabbed something very tightly over the bag and finally released it. Out from it came a small clinking sound of 2 coins.

For a lady who has nothing, giving the 2 coins meant the world to her. But instead of walking out of church with a pinch in her heart, she walked out with a radiant smile. It made me ponder how often we give out of our excess but not out of our hearts. For this old lady, she gave her everything.

Announcement to sponsors :

Our video conferencing is set-up so for the sponsors who would like to communicate with your children. Please email me at eugene@radion-international.org to get more details.

Do note that each child will be entitled to 15mins of conference time per week and the slot has to be arranged before hand so we can get the children to be around.

Days : Monday-Friday
Time : 8pm-9pm daily

What you need ?
Webcam + MSN

This is a short summary of the 2 hour meeting we had with UNHCR in Bangkok.

After the meeting with UNHCR, we are encouraged by their continual resolve to assist Hmong refugees and are constantly looking for ways to assist the 3 communities (Phetchabun refugee camp, Nong Khai detention centre and Site X).

They too have voiced that the Thai government has formally informed UNHCR that Thailand will be doing a screening process for the Hmongs as such, UNHCR has been denied access to the Hmong population at Huay Nam Khao (Phetchabun)

We are currently in discussions with UNHCR on a collaborative project to assist the Hmongs in both Nong Khai as well as Site X. On RADION's end, we are sending our lawyer to Nong Khai next week to negotiate with the immigration on the areas of collaboration.

Friends,

I'll be taking a short break from blogging for just a couple of days as we're heading down to Bangkok complete some paperwork as well as meet up with UNHCR.

For the meeting, we are hoping to establish the current assistance schemes which UNHCR is providing the 2 refugee groups in Nong Khai detention center as well as Site X. Once that is aside, we'll be looking at directing practical assistance to the areas which the refugees need the most.

So keep us in prayer as well.

Our community development is in good progress with the boar pen almost done. Now we are left with the semi-commercial pig breeding zone to complete the work.

The other issue which I'll need to contend with would be an office on site. So i was looking though the web for a cheap mobile office option and this caught my attention !


:)

Allow me to be upfront with my request and I'll explain the necessity subsequently.

I'm hoping to raise funding for a second truck which will cost about SGD22,000.

Let me now explain. We have been operating on slim overheads since we have started have been relying on an old Mitsubishi 16 year old truck for everything.... when i wrote everything.. its really it.

We use it to :
- fetch streetkids to school
- village food distribution missions
- long distance fact finding missions (> 300km)
- outreaches
- Logistics shuttle
- and many many more.

Many times, as much as we like try to deconflict schedules, instances of us ending up borrowing truck from our staff's family to fetch children are getting more frequent, thus the pressing need.

We are not asking to buy a spanking new car, but just a decent second hand 4WD truck which we can use in our operations.

To pool in funds to buy this truck, you can make your cheques payble to RADION International. designate "Outreach Truck" on the reverse with your name and contact and drop it in any OCBC Cheque deposit box. Alternatively, you can send them to the below mentioned address so we can acknowledge your contribution accordingly.