Helping Single Thai Mothers Keep Their Babies

Penelope is 22 years old and is originally from south Thailand. She was referred to us by a social worker at a local hospital. Her 3 year old daughter lives with the child’s paternal grandparents. She also has a 2 month old daughter who has a different father. Penelope is HIV positive and a victim of domestic abuse. She found out she was HIV positive when she went in for her first pregnancy screening. She got it from her husband, who neglected to tell her that he was HIV positive. Her younger daughter, Nora, is NOT HIV positive, but will take medicine for HIV until she is 6 months old. When HOS staff went to pick her up, we went to the police station and filed a report on the abuse. 

Penelope says that since she came to HOS, she has felt relieved. She doesn’t have to fear being hit and yelled at. In the past, she felt depressed all of the time, and all she could think about was how she could escape the environment she was in. She also kept thinking about how she could provide for her daughter. This all made her very stressed. She said that everything just kept going around and around in her head, until she felt sick  She is also thankful that she can spend time with Nora now. Prior to coming to HOS, she says she was working all day trying to make ends meet and didn’t really have time or energy to focus on her.

She thinks that in the future, she will be able to support herself and Nora by selling children’s clothes online. She would also like to study for the Thai high school equivalency exam and get her high school diploma.  

Thank you for your support for Home of the Swallow, which makes helping families like Penelope's possible!

Home of the Swallow recently provided training for our daycare students' parents. We shared about the five love languages with Thai, Burmese, and hill tribe families so that they could use them in their daily interactions. When we started to teach them, some families shared the ways in which they have demonstrated love to dear ones: for example, hugging them and using words of encouragement with each other - not only with their children, but also with their spouses, who are open about their desire to be loved by each other in different "languages". Yolanda (pseudonym) and her family reported that, after the training, they began expressing love through physical touch to their children, which had previously been challenging.They said that it was good to understand the research supporting these methods and began using them regularly to show love to their children. The parents and caregivers demonstrated a high level of interest in this training. We believe that the material covered and relationships built through our time together will have positive effects on families’ relationships and also trust that this training will help caregivers grow in sacrificial care for their children.