(From
material supplied by
FORDEC's
Activities
The
Foundation for Rehabilitation & Development of Children and Family (FORDEC),
is a non-profit, charitable organization dedicated to helping children, youth,
families and the aged who are poor, handicapped, wandering, homeless, addicted
to drugs, abused, HIV/AIDS afflicted and just generally living in difficult
circumstances. The Foundation provides material assistance for survival and
opportunities for physical and intellectual growth to uplift these people’s
living conditions.
Dr.
Amporn Wathanavongs formed FORDEC on 14 February 1998, St. Valentines Day. This
day was chosen to symbolize love. The Foundation aims to realize and extend love
and transform it into action to bring about material and spiritual needs to all
distressed, and through this action uplift their living conditions, promoting
human dignity. The Foundation works under the principle, "Give love and
concern to all distressed."
Dr.
Amporn with his charges
FORDEC
helps families with health, housing and occupational assistance to increase
their income and to enable them to attain a better standard of living. FORDEC's
main concern is to help the families in rural areas who have been affected by
the loss of work due to the economic crisis on 1997, and all families are helped
regardless of race or religious affiliation.
FORDEC
is aware that many children in rural areas are suffering from malnutrition. In
an effort to eradicate this, FORDEC is supporting a lunch program, which
provides nutritious food for children attending day centers and schools. At
present, the government helps by providing twenty percent and FORDEC supplements
this by a further fifty-five percent.
However,
the help from the government is going to be reduced due to the fact that FORDEC
support is so visible and so now it needs to raise this extra twenty percent to
be able to continue to support the lunch program. Currently 3,700 children in
twenty-nine schools, in four rural provinces along the Thai/Cambodian border are
benefiting from the lunch program.
FORDEC
does not just believe in eradicating malnutrition but also in helping the
families to help themselves and so it has set up an agriculture project. This
project teaches the children how to raise chickens, fish, pigs and ducks and how
to grow corn, rice and bananas. The products are then used to supplement the
lunch program. This project was started this year and has already helped 3,700
children.
FORDEC's
educational and vocational programs support individual families to help their
children attend school. Self-esteem and a career are essential keys to a better
future and FORDEC has helped 4,500 children with their schooling. FORDEC also
wishes in the future to help more young adults get to university and college. To
date, it has helped sixteen young adults with university and college studies
including one person who is studying at medical school.
FORDEC
has recently helped rural children by giving them scholarships with the
cooperation of the Monarch Lee Gardens Hotel. Many of these children have no
shoes and have to walk several kilometers to school. FORDEC intends to provide
20,000 pairs of sandals annually and has so far provided 1000.
Many of these very poor and underprivileged children, who live in remote parts of the provinces along the Thai/Cambodian border, have difficulties getting to school. This is largely due to the fact that they often live more than four kilometers from their school, with no shoes, little food and no transport. These children are poor because their families lost land because of forest conservation programs. They also have the added difficulty that there are still land mines in the area because of previous fighting between the two fractions in Cambodia for power.
FORDEC
is setting up a project to provide bicycles to the children living along the
border, who don't live on a bus route. 3,700 bicycles will be sent there, which
will enable 7,000 children to get to school easier. When these children have
finished school they will return the bikes to the school to enable other kids to
use them.
FORDEC
is also in the process of supporting the community to build a day care center
for seventy children in the rural area of Kalasin. At present, the smaller
children are cared for in decrepit conditions. FORDEC wishes to build a day care
center so that the children can be cared for in a safe and clean environment,
five days a week. This building will benefit future generations and enable
parents to go to work safe in the knowledge that their children are being
properly cared for.
FORDEC
continues to help those with drug rehabilitation, those affected by HIV/AIDS,
the elderly and people with multiple handicaps. FORDEC assisted with a project
to build the Hope House, which is a center for those affected by HIV/AIDS and
also The House of Love, a home for children with HIV/AIDS. In the Hope House and
The House of Love, the patients receive love, care and the moral and spiritual
support that they need to gain strength to fight the disease as well as medical
care in an unbiased and non-judgmental atmosphere.
FORDEC
helps people with multiple handicaps by supporting their training and then
giving them a real chance by providing them with an initial investment to enable
them to help themselves. Last year, FORDEC worked to improve the health of the
aged in rural areas by providing physical rehabilitation centers with the
necessary equipment and machines for rehabilitation and therapy. This program
works in close cooperation with the community, village temple and local health
personnel. So far, three centers have been completed serving more than 10,000
people.
FORDEC
also helps rural communities with community development. FORDEC helps to provide
sanitation, road improvement and health facilities such as immunization. FORDEC
is keen to help those people in rural areas in all aspects of development to
increase their standard of living.
In
helping the people in rural areas, FORDEC also addresses some of the problems in
urban areas. As FORDEC helps improve the standard of living for the people in
the rural areas, it takes away the need for them to migrate to urban areas and
thereby decreases problems such as overcrowding, unemployment and pollution in
the cities.
FORDEC's
main concern is to provide more sponsorships. At present, it has found sponsors
for 220 children but there are many more that would appreciate and benefit
immensely from this program.
A
sponsorship provides long term help to the child and its family. A child who is
on a sponsorship program will be able to receive housing and health improvements
and their family will be helped through an occupational investment to help
generate an income so that the family can become self-supporting.
Vocational
training is provided according to capabilities. In addition, a loan can be
granted to the family for productive business ventures so that the family can
earn more income to improve their living conditions.
Sponsorship
is also about building a higher self-esteem in the individual, having the
knowledge that another individual cares about them. Sponsorship also has immense
benefits on the sponsor's side too, learning about the person they are
sponsoring and being part of that person's life. The sponsorship program also
benefits overseas sponsors by promoting a cultural and international
understanding.
"From
an Old Brother I Offer this Food"
Food
is among the four basic necessities for survival in our society. Children are
the most needy for they are the future of our society. They are the force that
will lead our civilization in to the future, and if children are deprived of
basic necessities, our society will eventually fail.
FORDEC
donates time and resources to help develop suitable living conditions for
children in rural areas of Thailand, where many suffer from malnutrition and
lack of education. One of FORDEC's new programs assists in providing food to
over 4,300 children in Thai provinces like Chiang Mai and Nan. The "Lunch
Program," as it is called, provides these children with essential
nourishment. Hopefully, as a result of this, there will be fewer problems with
their health and more time for their education.
In
order to continue its Lunch Program, FORDEC is requesting the help of anyone
with a loving heart and compassion. There are thousands of other children in
need of assistance. Any donations are most welcome. For only THB6 per day, you
can feed a hungry child. For THB130, a child will be taken care of for one
month, THB600 for six months and THB1,200 for one year.
The
children of Thailand need your assistance to minimize their suffering. If you
can help, please contact FORDEC and contribute your donation. You can also find
FORDEC’S donation boxes all over Thailand. Remember, even the smallest
donations will greatly help reduce the amount of hungry children.
Contact
Info:
FORDEC
1035/3
Srinakarin Road, Suan-Luang
Bangkok
10250 Thailand
Tel:
721-2983-4
Fax:
721-2985
Email:
ampornwa@ksc.th.com
PO
Box 33, On-Nut
Bangkok
10250 Thailand
Website:
www.fordec.org
Finis
