Mae Hae, Chiang Mai

Mae Hae Children`s Home

The remote Karen hill tribe village of Mae Hae is located about 170 km by road from Chiang Mai city. The village has a small government school. However in 2003 there were not enough children in the village and the government school is scheduled to be closed down. The village committee approached us with the problem and proposed to us we open a hostel.

In the approximately 8 surrounding tribal villages of Mae Hae area there were many children that could not attend school since they needed to walk up to 10 km one way through the jungle to get to the Mae Hae School. Through the kind help of Meribah Ram Pump Company we now have a constant water supply from a water well 200 meters below ground located almost 2 Km away within the nearby valley.

Our water ram pump operates without electricity or gasoline and is powered by flowing water only. This is a big help as we do not have any operating costs. In the dry season we even have villagers who come for a shower since the Mae Hae Village does not have enough water during the dry season.

In 2007 we built a day care centre building and donated it to the village school. With the increase of pupils through the hostel and day care centre the government school increased the budget providing for more teachers. As a result the children have a better school education presently providing 6 to 9 years of education. We have an excellent working relationship with the teachers and we all highly appreciate one another’s efforts.

Apart from the formal government education we have in addition implemented various projects to teach the children various skills. Alongside the hostel we have a vegetable garden using our own prepared organic fertilizers and pesticides. We began collecting local Bua Thong flowers and producing our own herbal creams. Our young tribal girls actively concentrate on learning how to weave goods and the boys are learning how to make bamboo handicrafts.

The village committee is administrating and managing the hostel while our role is to support the overall needs such as food, school books, school uniforms, clothes, mosquito nets and medicine, etc...
It is very important to provide the hill tribe children with a proper education in Thai. Since the Karen tribal people have a very different language and culture they have problems integrating into the competitive and materialistic Thai society.

By providing these tribal children with a good education we are confident, they are being afforded the rightful opportunity to gain their hope for better future in life.