Baan Nong Kok School (2018)

Our main objective is to provide aid and assistance to rural schools and

students of very poor families through material and monetary donations whilst

introducing simple self-sufficiency schemes to improve the school’s condition as

well as the lives of the students and their families.

The project begins with a thorough survey of the target school by members of

the group in order to properly assess the school’s current condition. This is

followed by a set of interviews of the principal, teachers and students to find out

what they need and would like to be assisted with. It may be noted that families

in these communities are extremely poor yet would like very much to work with

us in making their school a better place for their children – a perfect example of a

“strong community” that others should learn from.

Having gathered enough information, a meeting is held to share ideas,

understand the problems and discuss what actions to be taken. With limited

funds from our Veggies from the Heart project plus donations from generous

individuals, we carefully decide what needs to be prioritized and draw up a list of

planned contributions. After providing support, we follow up on our donations to

see whether our help has been useful and the improvements that followed.

Depending on our annual budget, we gradually make our donations according to

our available funds, a policy we strictly adhere to whenever we help poor rural

schools in the Issarn region with emphasis on those with very limited government

funding.

Our major contributions are as follows:

1) Initiation of a “student lunch project” which provides the students

sufficient food resources as these schools have very limited annual

government subsidy. Sadly, these small rural schools have been targeted to

close down due to the government’s policy of assimilating smaller schools

to medium-sized schools in order to cut-down on national funding.

However, the families living in these villages are very poor; hence any other

additional expenses including transportation would be too burdensome.

Almost 60% these children, live with their aging grandparents as their

father, mother or both work in the city. Most often, these parents

eventually form their own new families in place of the one’s they left

behind leaving these poor children left uncared for, lacking affection,

guidance and suffer a life of hardship as money is never enough to cover

their daily needs especially food. Understanding their dilemma, we

introduced a long-term initiative so children can have a constant supply of

nutritious food source. Included in the program are organic vegetable

farming, poultry for eggs, catfish and frog breeding as well as mushroom

culture. Any remaining surplus is sold for a profit and used as a running

capital, generating additional income to the school.

2) Presentation of yearly scholarship funds for deserving students to

encourage learning and staying in school; setting up of a computer room

with donations of used computers from generous donors and parents;

contributions of learning materials and setting up of a small library with

donations of books and reading materials as we strongly believe that

reading is a very important aspect of learning and must be encouraged and

practiced. For the past 9 years, during term break, members of LHS perform

teaching activities to these children.

3) Sports is an essential part of school life; it promotes good health and team

building skills. Our contributions included repairing the damaged football

field and basketball court and donations of various sports equipment. After

the major repair, the children are now able to use the facilities safely and

with ease. Aside from this, as sanitation is another important issue, a

proper washing area and new latrines were constructed replacing the worn-

out 30-year old toilets. Moreover, clean drinking water and water for

general use was likewise necessary, hence a digging water project was

initiated together with the installation of new water tanks, water purifiers

and automated dispensers to ensure the school and its students a yearly

supply of clean water.

With every school we support,

we carefully assess and decide what

is urgently needed in order to

ensure that our course of action is

effective and will gain positive

results. Regular follow-ups are

performed to make certain that

whatever donations or contributions

we have made brought significant

improvements not only to the school

and its students but to the entire

community as well. Our support

continues until the school and its

students are able to look after

themselves without our assistance.

For the past 9 years we have

successfully supported several

schools namely: Baan Nong Ta Kaew Provincial School Nakhon Ratchasima, Baan

Nong Sub Tai Provincial School Nakhon Ratchasima, Baan Non Rang Provincial

School Nakhon Ratchasima, Baan Nong Mai Tai Provincial School Nakhon

Ratchasima, Baan Kritsana Provincial School Nakhon Ratchasima, Baan Nong Kok

Provincial School Nakhon Ratchasima and various other schools around the Thai

border at Mae Sot, Tak Province.

Once again, this year, during summer break, members of the Lionheart

Society had the opportunity to perform our Paws for a Cause Project. We visited

Baan Nong Kok Provincial School and Ban Nong Mai Tai Provincial School, both

located in Nakhon Ratchasima to check on the schools and their students’

development after receiving

our help and various

contributions.

Baan Nong Kok

Provincial School (3rd year

of support), has been most

appreciative of our

donation of new water

tanks as this was the

school’s biggest problem,

now clean water for

consumption and general

use is available all year-

through. The installation of

new water purifiers and

automated dispensers were

likewise very useful

providing the students and

teachers with daily supply

of clean drinking water instead of bringing them from home like they used to.

Similarly, the “student lunch project” has proven to be very effective in supplying

nutritious meal resources for the students and their families. Moreover, the

newly installed latrines for the kindergarten section have also been very helpful as

in the past, the small children had to use the regular toilets which were quite

distant and unsafe to go unaccompanied. Moreover, books for young children

and other age-appropriate reading materials were donated.

Similar to previous years, this visit included our regular teaching activities, fun

games, presentation of learning materials, teaching aids and sports equipment as

well as scholarship funds to deserving students. The children were very happy to

see us again and we were equally pleased to see the development of our support

and contributions. As always, we ended the trip by surveying and checking what

the students and school still needed and decided to help with providing the

school with new stainless steel plates to replace the dilapidated aluminium ones,

along with a new slide that meets health and safety requirements.

The Baan Nong Kok school was previously missing divided stainless steel plates, as such, the Lionheart Society donated such plates to the school which will allow students to use them for their school lunch.

The playground equipment that we have decided to donate to the Baan Nong Kok

school have arrived.