Give someone you love a big bag of coal this Christmas. Seriously! Charcoal is what many people in refugee camps use to cook their daily meals and without it, none of the children we support get fed.

If you don’t know what to get the person who has everything, why not get them a Munch or Snuggle Basket?  If for no other reason than they are fun to say, Munch and Snuggle baskets are quick and easy to give. When you donate funds on someone’s behalf for Christmas, you will be giving food, blankets and school supplies to a child on the Thai-Burma border. Your friend will get a certificate telling them all about their gift and both of you can feel warm and fuzzy inside. Most importantly, so, too, can a child living in a boarding house in a refugee camp here in Thailand, wrapped up in a nice big blanket with a clean pair of underwear on and a belly full of rice.

The Munch Basket costs $20CDN and contains:

• 4 kg of rice
• One chicken
• One month’s food (vegetables and protein once a week)
• One school pack with school supplies
• Christmas treats

The Snuggle Basket costs $30 CDN and contains:

• 1 pair of slippers (flip-flaps, sandals, or whatever you call them)
• 2 pairs of socks
• 3 pairs of underwear
• 1 large blanket (comforter, cotton duvet or whatever you call it)
• A whole lotta lumps of coal (otherwise known as cooking fuel or charcoal)
• School supplies
• Christmas treats

The easiest way to purchase is by using Paypal either through our website or through the Paypal website. Please remember to send us an email with the information on those receiving your gift(s),  so we can send their certificates. If you have any questions or want to get in touch, please send us an email: info@roomtogrowfoundation.org

Happy Holidays!

I want to start this blog with the lessons that I have learned this past month. I learned that it is easy to do a great deal with very little sometimes, and that love makes a big difference.

Bright birthday cakes for bright children

On October 31st, Room to Grow organized a birthday party for 53 children at Agape boarding house. The house shelters orphans and abandoned children, as well as children from single parent families who can’t economically support them and children from extremely dangerous conditions who are vulnerable to trafficking and other dangers that haunt the border. Although R2G began organizing the party, our contribution ended up being perhaps the smallest of all the amazing flood of people who helped, donated, contributed, and participated. To all those people, whether you were present or not, I say a huge Thank You, because the party could not have been the amazing success it was without so much incredible support.

On the morning of the party, a group of about six humanitarian workers from different organizations got up early to decorate the 65 cakes that had been delivered the night before by the ZOA Refugee Care Vocational Training Bakery project in Mae La Refugee Camp. There were 55 small individual cakes for the students, and ten larger cakes for the guests. We had huge bowls of ridiculously bright icing crowding the table and before too long, we all had blobs of blue and crimson and orange all over our hands, our chairs, our faces and our mouths.

Help Without Frontiers was kind enough to provide a truck and driver to take the boxes and boxes of cakes down the highway and out to the school, which is located within view of the Moei River and the border between Thailand and Burma.

We arrived with the cakes just as Wide Horizons was setting up.

Wide Horizons is a school for young adults and adults from grassroots community organizations. In the 11 month course, the students learn intensive English as well as teaching skills and project management. The course is designed to help encourage and equip the leaders of tomorrow and I saw first hand how great the current group of students are doing in progressing towards that goal.

The Wide Horizons students did a fantastic job that day. They sung songs and told stories and played games. They helped in the kitchen and with getting the children bathed and clothed in the evening. They decorated a plain patch of ground until it looked like a place to party. I think the most important thing they did that day, however, was show the children the value of education, and what kind of future they can aspire to. Many of the Wide Horizons students were separated from their families at an early age and many lost parents and grew up in boarding houses or with extended family. Like the Agape children,

they started out with little and fought hard to gain much. I saw them

The Frog Jump Race

act as strong, enthusiastic and glorious role models for young children who often have

to make difficult choices between a desire for education and safety and a need to make money and support siblings.

All afternoon the Wide Horizons students sung songs and played games. There was a big bag of candy provided by Penny, a VSO volunteer, which lasted all afternoon and which brought so much excitement to the proceedings. The candy prizes lent a particular fervour to some of the races and games and a certain sugar buzz that grew as the day went on.

The Wide Horizons students were on the look out for older children taking care of younger children and had a team of students ready to take over that care so that the older students could have some time off to relax and play, too. They took over kitchen duties from some of the older girls so that they could join the three-legged races. They told stories under the shade of the trees when the day got too hot for races.

When the games and the stories were over, they helped the children bathe and get dressed in their best clothes. I think one of the girls must have brought a make up kit because the girls came out of the boarding house glittering and proud of their eye shadow, blush and lipstick.

As the sun set, the children played under balloons that had been sent to them from Canada and watched eagerly as we set out cakes on the long white tables under the streamers. Guests arrived, some of them on bicycles they had to peddle a long way out the highway and up a hill to the school.

Headmaster David led the students in singing their favourite songs, including a very loud rendition of “We Are the World.” Then we went out to sit by the tables.

The children’s face when we opened the boxes and started taking out the cakes was priceless. The cakes were quite small, but each child had one with a tiny flag sticking out with his or her name on it and that cake was for that child and that child alone.

The excitement grew.

Holding back the hoardes while the cakes are unveiled

It took quite some time to get all the children in place sitting in front of the cake with the right name. Then we had to get Wide Horizons students and the adult guests standing behind each child with a gift. There were speeches and more songs and a final singing of happy birthday when we lit the candles and the children blew them out.

There is a very sweet Burmese tradition of feeding cake to the birthday person, so the adults reached around and fed the cake to the children. Despite having such a small cake, most children then turned around and insisted on feeding a piece of cake back.

While the cakes were being eaten, adults distributed presents. R2G had put a call out to everyone in the Mae Sot community asking people to scour their houses for things which they didn’t use which might be suitable as gifts. The response was quite wonderful. It took me two completely laden motorcycle

That one's mine!

trips to get it all out to the school. In addition to all the people from Mae Sot who came up with wonderful toys and presents, people from America and Canada also sent packages. Packages full of crayons, hotwheels, tiaras and birthday cards. Randerson Ridge Elementary school in Canada had their students each make a birthday card for a student at Agape.

Some children clutched their beautifully wrapped presents fiercely and wouldn’t open them. Others tore them open. There was no present, no matter how strange, that didn’t elicit joy and smiles. One girl pulled a pair of green plastic heart-shaped glasses out of her birthday box with a grin that would have lit up her classroom for a month it was so bright. The gifts had been separated into boys and girls gifts but it was so confusing and wild that one boy got a girl’s box by mistake. I saw him gleefully examining a pink jewelery box with just as much happiness as the boy playing with the plastic truck.

Dinner was served but it took me a long time to notice, there was so much going on. The night was full of laughter and excited talking, and singing and kids running around, showing off their toys. Some women in Australia had sent us knitted hats, enough for every child and despite the heat, kids had their hats on.

There were big pots of Burmese noodle stew, full of mushrooms and vegetables, and bowls of fresh oranges, and crispy fish crackers and all kinds of delicious food. It was a testament to how excited the children were that they weren’t simply stuffing their faces. The food was hot and delicious and we ate under the streamers and balloons, watching the children play and the sun go down.

David brought in about twenty other children who attend school during the day at Agape and who sleep at night in the factory where their parents work. We brought over the extra small cakes and the large cakes for them and there was plenty of food to go around. They joined the general madness happily.

Sitting back and watching the guests play with the children and talk to each other I didn’t see a single person who didn’t have a huge smile plastered across their face. As the day got dark, the school had the feeling of a backyard barbecue birthday, one that you might come across in any corner of the world.

I have never been a big believer in parties. I think it’s more important to raise money for a regular supply of food than a silly celebration but this party made me question that stance. It’s important for young children to know that they are special and loved as well. A birthday is a day when family and friends celebrate that you came into the world and are in their lives. These children get too many messages telling them that they shouldn’t be here and they aren’t wanted, it’s important to tell them as often and as loudly as possible that there is hope for their future and love in their loves. Thanks to the Wide Horizons students, the Mae Sot community, and friends of Agape in Canada and America and most of all thanks to Headmaster David, his wife and the school’s volunteer teachers, I think we succeeded in sending the children of Agape that message on October 31st, their birthday.

In August this year, Room to Grow received a request for assistance from Ler Doh dormitory, in Mae La Refugee Camp. The dormitory houses 59 students, most of whom left their families inside Burma to seek and education and is in the second year of operations.

The dormitory was originally set up as an ‘emergency dormitory’ for students who had no family or friends to stay with in the camp. For the most part the students come from Burma, in Karen state. While the students’ educational and economic backgrounds are quite varied, they are all committed to education. Initially, it was thought that only thirty students would come, however the number increased to fifty, and this year there are 59 students.

The boarding house was experiencing an unusually high number of malaria and dengue fever cases among the students in June and July. Both diseases are mosquito-born and can be easily prevented by sleeping under mosquito nets. Unfortunately, mosquito nets were something the dormitory didn’t have and couldn’t afford.

The dormitory was also in need of blankets for the children staying there, and we were able to provide funds for those also. This is a message from the caregiver at Ler Doh Dormitory:

“The students are ever so grateful for these materials. In particular the mosquito nets provide much needed prevention from malaria and dengue fever. Reports for August tell us that all students are healthy.”

The students at Ler Doh dorm would like to say a big Thank You everyone who supports Room to Grow from their cozy blankets, under their safe mosquito nets. We, in turn, would like to wish them good health and good luck on their upcoming exams!

Last month, there was a large birthday party at one of the migrant schools in Mae Sot. The headmistress celebrated her birthday and provided cakes to every child also celebrating their birthday on the same day. There were about twenty cakes in all and over a hundred people came to the ceremony. Among those invited were the children from Agape school and they performed a beautiful song wishing everyone a happy birthday, then sat quietly in the crowd watching the celebrations and watching the lucky children eat their cake.

I sat next to David, Agape’s headmaster, for most of the ceremony. They get invited to sing at a lot of ceremonies but suddenly I wondered how many people came to their birthday parties.

“How many children know when their birthday is?” I whispered to David.

“Almost none of them,” he replied. “Some don’t know how old they are at all.”

“Have they ever had a birthday party?” I asked, already knowing the answer. “Do you think they would like one?”

“I think most children at Agape have never had a birthday party or a birthday cake,” David said. “But I think they would really, really, really like one.”

So that settled it. We began planning.

And now it’s time to invite you to join us for the Forgotten Birthdays Party. We are going to be celebrating 51 birthdays on October 31st and we’d love for you to join us in whatever way you can.

Our goal is to make the day as special as we can for each individual child. We are celebrating the birthday of 50 children (the 51st birthday is my own), aged 2 years to 14 years. We’ll be providing each child with a cake of their own, with their name on it in icing. I’d also like to give each child a small gift and a birthday card. If you have time to send even a home made card, a small note, some stickers – anything you think would be special for a child, I know these contributions will be warmly appreciated.

Please send cards and gifts to: PO Box 96. Mae Sot, Tak. Thailand. 63110.

Please join us for the celebration on the afternoon of October 31st, if you are able. We will be playing games, eating food, singing songs and doing a little dancing and the more the merrier. Contact me for more information. An invitation with a map will be available soon (jjones@roomtogrowfoundation.org)

Happy birthday to all!

R2G Children’s Foundation is now officially registered with the Government of Canada as a Charity!! Our status came through on June 15th, 2009. We are now able to issue official tax receipts for all donations we receive.

Although we usually go by the name of Room to Grow Foundation our officially registered name is: R2G Children’s Foundation and our official charitable number is:

85672 6625 RR0001

Our offices are located at 2141 Batten Road, Golden, B.C. Canada. V0A-1H1. This is also a great place to send checks made out to “R2G Children’s Foundation.”

Because this process has taken an inordinately long amount of time, our Paypal account has been limited until we were awarded the charitable status. Paypal is now reviewing our documents and we hope to have that up and available to accept donations again soon.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@roomtogrowfoundation.org

For 2 years now, we have been working as an organisation – Room to Grow Foundation – supporting children in refugee camps and in migrant areas, as well as in Burma with basic necessities: food, blankets, shoes, mosquito nets.

What have we achieved so far?

@ Up to 200 children receiving food (vegetables, meat, eggs) regularly
@ The set-up of Moon Dorm, that is wholly managed and funded by Room to Grow
@ Charity status in Canada
@ Partnerships with local organisations: the Karen Women’s Organisation (KWO), the SAW safe house among others
@ Partnerships with international organisations: World Education, Thailand; Raffles Junior College students, Singapore; Westminster Presbytarian Church, Canada among others

This would not have been possible without the help of
@ Jonathan – our web specialist
@ Susie – our marketing and fundraising advisor
@ Erika – our nutrition advisor
@ Our many donors and supporters

Thank you everyone for your continued support.

In light of our upcoming fundraising campaigns, underwear has been on my mind a lot.  Before you think anything crude, one of our upcoming campaigns is for underwear.  Not for me, thanks, I have lots.  But have you ever wondered what orphaned or unaccompanied refugees and migrants wear under their clothes?  Is it anything at all?  And if nothing, how do they feel?  The same way you or I would feel when going solo? Or would it not bother them at all?

And if you had five bucks to:

a)    Buy food

b)    Buy underwear

c)     Buy shoes

d)    Buy a roof over your head

e)    Buy a blanket

Which would you choose to spend your fiver on first?   Would you buy food before underwear?

Probably.  But that doesn`t mean you wouldn`t want to wear underwear, does it?  It just means you might have some different priorities. 

At Room to Grow Foundation, some of the funding we have acquired has gone towards supplying underwear in the past, but not for every project.  Until we started working more with the projects, we didn`t realize just how important this small piece of material was, and so we tended to emphasize the other basic necessities.

We now see the error of our ways, and would now like to give ALL the children in the projects we support the opportunity to wear underwear.  We don`t want to see the underwear, we just want to know it`s there.

We`ll be calling on potential donors to help support this cause.  For the price of a pretty piece of lingerie from Victoria Secret, you can buy underwear for a child for ONE YEAR.

Photofriend is a project in which we give boarding house children digital cameras and ask them to take photographs. The children then use the photographs to tell us about what life is like as a separated or orphaned child living in a refugee camp. This year we’d like to expand the program to work with some boarding houses in the migrant community as well as in the refugee camp. Unfortunately we only have six cameras from our previous project, run in 2007.

We are putting out a call for used digital cameras. If you have upgraded in the last few years and still have some old digital cameras floating around, please consider contacting us. Memory cards are fairly inexpensive in Thailand, so all we need are cameras. In addition, if anyone has an old video camera lying around, digital or otherwise, we would really love to be able to have one for our blog posts and to make movies to send people.

Please spread the word and let us know if you think you can round up any cameras or videocameras. You can wrap them up and put them in the mail (feel free to use surface mail rather than air mail to save money) or contact us for more information about people we know who may be traveling to the region soon.

Thanks in advance for your help

The sun was hot and my hands were aching as I carried another bucket of cement from the mixing area to the foundations of the new girl’s dormitory building. Six children from the boarding house met me at the foundations, eagerly taking the buckets from my hands to do the most exciting job in their eyes, actually pouring the cement. I took the empty buckets from their hands and went back for another refill.

When we took a break and sat in the shade of the mango trees lining the property the boys didn’t sit still. They climbed the trees and searched for long poles to knock the fruit from the branches. The entire day I worked with them, they spent every moment of free time looking for something to eat and celebrating when they were successful. At the end of the day I was sun burnt and tired but we were all sweaty and dirty. The girl’s dormitory building, however, was a solid step closer to becoming a reality in time for the upcoming school year.

At the end of the day, we walked back together to the “old school”, the buildings that have been home to Agape for the last few years. Gradually, over the months of the hot season, while school is not in session, the volunteer workers and staff at the school and boarding house are building new structures on the land they now own, a few kilometers from their current location. But for now, the children spend their summer days in the old bamboo buildings, playing on a small patch of dirt that becomes a lake of mud during the rainy season.

Thanks to some generous donors, Agape was able this year to realize an important dream: purchasing land to call their own. The land is beautiful. Ringed by mango and tamarind trees there is space for the school and dormitory buildings, place for mushrooms, chickens and a garden, and most importantly, there is room for children to run and play and make noise.

For the first time, the children will be living in concrete structures that are built to last and every night when they go to sleep, they will sleep knowing that they have a home for as long as they need it. No landlord will evict them and no storm will bring the thatch down in the wind. The roof won’t leak and there won’t be holes in the floor.

Unfortunately this year, we only had enough funds raised to construct one dormitory building. This year, all the material from the two dormitories at the old school will be recycled in order to build the boy’s dormitory building on the new land. We’ll be fundraising later this year so that in March 2010, we’ll be ready to build the boys a real home and a safe place to stay.

When the buildings have been constructed, we’ll be posting more pictures here but in the meantime, on behalf of everyone at Agape, I’d like to thank our Christmas donors, who really made this dream come true.

On May 1st, Room to Grow will start working with its newest partner, Social Action for Women. Based in Mae Sot, SAW provides important services to the Burmese population living outside the refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border. Much of their work takes place in and around the factories where thousands of illegal Burmese workers attempt to make a living in sweatshop-like conditions.

In addition to operating six housing centres, SAW also runs an income generation program, a gender-based violence program, a health education program, and education program and a women’s exchange program. The health education program alone reaches out to over 20,000 people in the migrant community every year, indicating just how important the organization is to the local community here in Mae Sot.

SAW supports women and children in six housing centres in Mae Sot. They shelter children seeking an education from Burma’s Internally Displaced zones (IDP areas) and helps them go to school at one of their education programs. They shelter women in need at their Women’s Crisis Centre. This year they will open a shelter specifically for women and children who have been trafficked. They provide shelter and care to children with HIV and other health problems at their Health Care House. And finally, they have a safehouse for infants and young children who have been abandoned or whose parents have died. Many of the children in the safe house have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS.

On May 1st, we’ll be making our first delivery of rice to the SAW safehouse, where we will help to feed the 50 children who are there. Some are just newborns, others are as old as five. We’ll be providing rice to the safehouse every month and working to develop a program which will improve the children’s wellbeing. Check here for updates on the program, starting in June.