As I get ready for my final week in Thailand before heading to the US, I am excited to share about the organization I will be working with when I return to Thailand in October: The HUG Project!
HUG is a Northern Thai word that means "love." This is a perfect word for the project because love, specifically the love of Jesus, is something that these kids have had precious little of in recent years, if not their whole lives. In English, HUG stands for Hope, Understanding and Grace. HUG wants to give kids Hope for the future, provide Understanding for their situations, and extend Grace when they return to unhealthy styles of living, sometimes repeatedly.
This is a relatively new project, having been birthed in June of 2012 by P'Boom and P'Dao, two amazing Thai people who had a vision for helping the street kids who lived near the river and in the red light district of Chiang Mai. Their first idea of helping these street kids has grown to include eight full time volunteers and expanded into the arenas of fighting human trafficking, exploitation and abuse of children.
HUG was one of the first nationally recognized anti-human trafficking organizations founded in Thailand and P'Boom was one of the first people certified as a child interviewer in cases of abuse or trafficking. She has a wealth of knowledge, connections, and partnerships and a willingness to share all of these with her staff.
Let me break down all the aspects of HUG for you to show you the scope of this project. One aspect is the Big Brother Project. This is the partnership with the police of Region 5, near the river. Policemen from this precinct volunteer their time to build relationships with the homeless boys who sleep under the bridge at night and expand their worldview by taking them on outings to places like waterfalls, the shooting range and a jungle zipline course. One policemen has become a Christian since working with HUG and can be even more of a positive influence in the boys' lives. The goal of BB is to build up the boys' confidence and self-worth and encourage them to complete their education so they can get good jobs, have a place to live and support themselves as adults.
Another aspect of BB and HUG is the Education Center. This is a twice weekly time when teachers from a GED program come to teach GED classes to boys from Big Brother and girls from other FCF organizations such as Baan San Rak and Compass 31 to help prepare them to take the test equivalent to either a 6th grade, 9th grade or 12th grade academic completion. After GED classes, HUG volunteers teach additional classes such as music, art, critical thinking and life skills. I will be helping to teach the critical thinking class. I hope to put my history working in film to good use by teaching the students how to tell stories on film, teaching them about the different aspects of preparation, production and post-production. It's a big project, but I hope we can make it work. My goal would be to have the kids work together to produce their own short film by the end of a year. I have already reached out to some industry friends and perhaps will get a team of them to come do a hands on filmmaking seminar. We'll see...
Every other week, HUG hosts sports days where the kids have the chance to spend the afternoon playing soccer, rock climbing, doing archery, or some other activity. There are also optional cell groups, aka Bible studies, for the girls and boys to take part in separately. The girls' group currently has about 15 girls, while the boys' group varies from 4-10, depending on the week.
HUG is committed to keeping families together whenever possible. If they find a child who has been trafficked or run away, they track the family down and see if it's a safe place for the child to return. If the family is not quite in a stable situation, they will meet regularly with family members to become a stronger family unit and be in a position to take care of their children better. As much as possible, HUG feels the best for a child's life is being in a safe and loving environment with their family.
A huge part of P'Boom's work specifically is investigating allegations of abuse or trafficking and then interviewing victims to determine what the situation is and what type of intervention is necessary. If an investigation turns into court proceedings, she will help prepare children for what will happen in court. She also does a lot of counseling with the children of HUG project as well as children from ongoing investigations.
As you can see, it's an ambitious project and aiming to change the landscape of how the police interact with street kids, get kids off the streets and into safe situations and teaching all the children they come in contact with that they have worth and are valued. I am excited to be joining this team and am looking forward to being able to help them accomplish everything they aim to do.
My role when I return will initially focus on creating an information database with the story of every child we work with, even peripherally. This is a big task and the staff is currently so busy with the day to day, they haven't had the chance to get it done properly, so I can fill that void. Once that is up and running, it will take a lot less upkeep, just updating things as they come up and keeping track of progress of the kids we see regularly. I'll also be building relationships with the students through the ED Center and sports days and other activities, like the World Cup carnival we had on 4th of July.
Eventually, I'll be working with P'Boom on applying for grants to get funding for our projects. Right now, HUG operates from sporadic gifts from teams and other donors and from the support budgets of the volunteers. If we could get grants from corporations, HUG could purchase a vehicle for doing investigations in mountain villages that are difficult to get to by car, could do a wider range of activities with the kids and maybe even provide scholarships for kids who want to go on to university.
So, that's the next phase of my time in Thailand. I look forward to seeing what the fall and 2015 brings!
HUG is a Northern Thai word that means "love." This is a perfect word for the project because love, specifically the love of Jesus, is something that these kids have had precious little of in recent years, if not their whole lives. In English, HUG stands for Hope, Understanding and Grace. HUG wants to give kids Hope for the future, provide Understanding for their situations, and extend Grace when they return to unhealthy styles of living, sometimes repeatedly.
This is a relatively new project, having been birthed in June of 2012 by P'Boom and P'Dao, two amazing Thai people who had a vision for helping the street kids who lived near the river and in the red light district of Chiang Mai. Their first idea of helping these street kids has grown to include eight full time volunteers and expanded into the arenas of fighting human trafficking, exploitation and abuse of children.
HUG was one of the first nationally recognized anti-human trafficking organizations founded in Thailand and P'Boom was one of the first people certified as a child interviewer in cases of abuse or trafficking. She has a wealth of knowledge, connections, and partnerships and a willingness to share all of these with her staff.
Let me break down all the aspects of HUG for you to show you the scope of this project. One aspect is the Big Brother Project. This is the partnership with the police of Region 5, near the river. Policemen from this precinct volunteer their time to build relationships with the homeless boys who sleep under the bridge at night and expand their worldview by taking them on outings to places like waterfalls, the shooting range and a jungle zipline course. One policemen has become a Christian since working with HUG and can be even more of a positive influence in the boys' lives. The goal of BB is to build up the boys' confidence and self-worth and encourage them to complete their education so they can get good jobs, have a place to live and support themselves as adults.
Another aspect of BB and HUG is the Education Center. This is a twice weekly time when teachers from a GED program come to teach GED classes to boys from Big Brother and girls from other FCF organizations such as Baan San Rak and Compass 31 to help prepare them to take the test equivalent to either a 6th grade, 9th grade or 12th grade academic completion. After GED classes, HUG volunteers teach additional classes such as music, art, critical thinking and life skills. I will be helping to teach the critical thinking class. I hope to put my history working in film to good use by teaching the students how to tell stories on film, teaching them about the different aspects of preparation, production and post-production. It's a big project, but I hope we can make it work. My goal would be to have the kids work together to produce their own short film by the end of a year. I have already reached out to some industry friends and perhaps will get a team of them to come do a hands on filmmaking seminar. We'll see...
Every other week, HUG hosts sports days where the kids have the chance to spend the afternoon playing soccer, rock climbing, doing archery, or some other activity. There are also optional cell groups, aka Bible studies, for the girls and boys to take part in separately. The girls' group currently has about 15 girls, while the boys' group varies from 4-10, depending on the week.
HUG is committed to keeping families together whenever possible. If they find a child who has been trafficked or run away, they track the family down and see if it's a safe place for the child to return. If the family is not quite in a stable situation, they will meet regularly with family members to become a stronger family unit and be in a position to take care of their children better. As much as possible, HUG feels the best for a child's life is being in a safe and loving environment with their family.
A huge part of P'Boom's work specifically is investigating allegations of abuse or trafficking and then interviewing victims to determine what the situation is and what type of intervention is necessary. If an investigation turns into court proceedings, she will help prepare children for what will happen in court. She also does a lot of counseling with the children of HUG project as well as children from ongoing investigations.
As you can see, it's an ambitious project and aiming to change the landscape of how the police interact with street kids, get kids off the streets and into safe situations and teaching all the children they come in contact with that they have worth and are valued. I am excited to be joining this team and am looking forward to being able to help them accomplish everything they aim to do.
My role when I return will initially focus on creating an information database with the story of every child we work with, even peripherally. This is a big task and the staff is currently so busy with the day to day, they haven't had the chance to get it done properly, so I can fill that void. Once that is up and running, it will take a lot less upkeep, just updating things as they come up and keeping track of progress of the kids we see regularly. I'll also be building relationships with the students through the ED Center and sports days and other activities, like the World Cup carnival we had on 4th of July.
Eventually, I'll be working with P'Boom on applying for grants to get funding for our projects. Right now, HUG operates from sporadic gifts from teams and other donors and from the support budgets of the volunteers. If we could get grants from corporations, HUG could purchase a vehicle for doing investigations in mountain villages that are difficult to get to by car, could do a wider range of activities with the kids and maybe even provide scholarships for kids who want to go on to university.
So, that's the next phase of my time in Thailand. I look forward to seeing what the fall and 2015 brings!
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