Central Thailand Mission
Project Managers: Magnus and Deborah Ekner
Since 1997, Central Thailand Mission – based in Bangkok – has been working to improve the lives of disadvantaged communities in Thailand in the following ways:
- Providing a bridge between people with the needs and those with the resources.
- Providing basic essentials of food, water, and clothes for destitute communities.
- Initiating the sponsorship of major needs and projects eg. A seminar for teachers from rural schools to upgrade teaching skills, building a daycare center.
- Counseling and encouragement for the handicapped, the terminally-ill (death coaching/grief counseling) , AIDS patients, abused women & children.
- Counseling and preparing orphans for adoption.
- Utilizing the assistance of international volunteers who want to give of their time, talents or resources to help others.
- Sharing spiritual strength and comfort with those who need and seek a purpose and direction for a meaningful life.
Volunteers from Central Thailand Mission assist in the following programs:
- The Rangsit Babies' Home (orphanage for about 300 children), an ongoing program to prepare the children for adoption which includes teaching English and socialization activities.
- Volunteer program, coordinating logistics and projects for students and professionals who want to volunteer for a hands-on experience working with the orphans or other humanitarian aid programs.
- Industrial Rehabilitation Center is for those who are handicapped due to factory or auto accidents. CTM offers counseling and basic skills in English and computer to enable them to find jobs.
- Emergency Home for Women: a shelter for women or children who seek refuge from abusive domestic situations with husbands or family/relatives. CTM organizes activities such as: Mother's Day programs; song and dance therapy for children, visits to HIV patients, counseling.
- Humanized Health Care (HHC program): CTM Volunteers visit hospital patients and also conduct seminars, classes for hospital staff and care-givers.
- Prison ministry: Volunteers serve at the maximum security prison in Bangkok to provide counseling, encouragement, spiritual support and help with some legal paperwork.
- Home for the Blind and Multiply-Handicapped: CTM provides a supply of fruits, vegetables, rice and other food essentials to this institution.
For highlights of activities of Central Thailand Mission, click on the article(s) below:
Bangkok, Thailand
Project Manager Deborah Ekner (center) with Padaung tribal women.
Debbie with Hmong hilltribe children.
CTM volunteer Sunny with orphans.
Peter Frost, our senior programs coordinator was presented with the Thayer Academy Alumni Humanitarian Award 2004 at an official ceremony held at the respected institution in Braintree, Massachusetts.This award is annually presented to those of the Academy's alumni who have shown outstanding work in the field of humanitarian aid.
By Deborah Ekner, FCF Project Manager in Bangkok, Thailand Central Thailand Mission Project (p20)
By Debbie Ekner, Central Thailand Mission (CTM)We were recently able to provide an opportunity for some enthusiastic young people discover the joy of serving others & doing their part to help the disadvantaged.
We conduct a weekly program at Ban Dek On Ransit Babies’ Home geared to prepare Thai orphans who are to be adopted by foreign families. The aim of the program is to provide lessons and experiences that will enable them to more easily adjust to their new environments.
CTM Volunteers spend time at a shelter for women and children who have sought refuge there from abusive domestic situations.
In all our hospital visitation programs, we try to add the personal touch.
Volunteers from CTM regularly visit an institute that houses young men who have been injured and/or left handicapped from industrial accidents.
Everyone has a talent – and many people are happy to share this with those less fortunate . Many international students, professionals, housewives, backpackers from the US, Japan, Sweden, Korea, Canada, Denmark, Singapore, China, England, Thailand and India have joined us during their vacation for a short stint.
Family Care Foundation helped Central Thailand Mission with a grant to supply a clean water system for deprived Karen villagers in a settlement for Internationally Displaced Persons (IDP) in northwestern Thailand. The grant also provided for the establishment of a self-sustaining fish farm, as well as providing educational materials for a school for the children of these Burmese refugees.
During our travels to other parts of the country during the course of providing educational videos to rural schools, we take the opportunity to supply essentials for the communities that we come in contact with.
Our first contact with the Karens happened right after the tsunami of 2004. A day after the waves devastated the coast of Phuket and Phangnga provinces, we arrived with a truckload of supplies, basic essentials and a team of volunteers ready to provide necessary physical, emotional and spiritual comfort to the suffering and needy.
Much of our work upcountry is in the province of Pathumthani, as well as Rajburi and Kanchanaburi. In order to boost the children's curriculum in these poorer schools, we make sponsored sets of educational videos available to each of these schools.
The Moken sea gypsies or Chao Lay, as the Thais call them, are a nomadic tribe of people who travel and live among the islands of the Mergui Archipelago. They have settled on the southern tip of this range, on the Surin islands & islands off Ranong & Krabi The Moken originate from Indonesia.