Help Stateless children achieve Thai citizenship

This week, we are one step closer to citizenship for three of our students!

Doi Saket: Our siblings in Doi Saket went to get their DNA tests at the hospital yesterday. Once the results come back in a month, we can take it to the government office and get them on the citizenship registry. Then, it's just a matter of waiting till their number comes up to pick up their official Thai ID cards!

Chiang Dao: After waiting for 3 months, when we were told 1 month at the most, we finally got the paperwork from the hospital where Yvonne** was born. Now, we need to pick up the paper and find out what the next step is. It will either be to have a DNA test or interviews with villagers who know her family.

Complicating matters in both of these situations is that the Thai government's favorite thing to switch up their government workers as often as possible. So, even though the process takes months, there are multiple people who have to deal with the same case. In Doi Saket, we have been working on this case since February and worked with 5 different citizenship officers. Every time they switch, we have to start all over again explaining the situation and what step we are on and hope that they will continue to help with the case. In Chiang Dao, we have worked with 3 citizenship officers in the past 6 months. Often in cases like this, waiting for a specific document to arrive, when the new person comes, they will just trash all the papers on their desk because they aren't familiar with any of the cases. Luckily for us, the new citizenship officer saw the form and messaged Yvonne to tell her of its arrival. We take this as a good sign that they will continue to help get Yvonne her citizenship.

**Name changed for confidentiality.