By Heather Askew | Project Leader
In July, we got the chance to assist a group from Anaheim in teaching reproductive health and distributing Days for Girls sanitation kits to girls in rural Chiang Dao. It was a good opportunity to work with a new group of people and teach young girls important informtation about their health.
In August, we partnered with Prosperous Youth Foundation again to teach trafficking prevention workshops to caregivers at children's homes in Chiang Mai. Our first round of workshops went well, but the attendees were from larger foundations, and most had received training in these areas before. we were excited for this opportunity to provide these workshops to people working in smaller homes who often don't have the chance to attend workshops like this. This month we taught about Children's Rights and Healthy Teen Relationships and will have this group back in September to learn about Safe and Unsafe Touch and Internet Safety.
Also in August, we had the exciting chance to bring together people from three different provinces in Thailand to discuss foster care and how to establish the system all over Thailand. Grace International from Pattaya and For Freedom International in Phuket came up to Chiang Mai to meet with Care for Children and the foster care department of Chiang Mai Ministry of Social Welfare to gain knowledge and advice on how to launch foster care in their areas. Currently, neither has a government orphanage operating foster care in their province. After this meeting, both teams have new connections with the government offices in their area to start planning for connecting families with children in need of care.
We also had the chance to support a training for foster parents in Isaan Province that was put on by Care for Children. It's so important for foster families to have training before taking on foster children and up until this point, the government has been unable to provide the training so desperately needed. Thanks to your support, we have sponsored two trainings in 2018 and hope that this partnership can continue. By January 2019, the Social Welfare department will have a new list of guidelines for foster parents to complete before receiving children and they will be starting a new program for children in the orphanage to prepare them for transitioning into a foster family. We look forward to the day when the Thai government will be able to financially support all these trainings but we are so happy for the chance to walk alongside them as they continue to develop this system.
It's now been a year since our project launch with GlobalGiving, so if you gave in our initial request, we would love for you to partner with us again so we can continue these workshops and trainings in 2019.
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