THAILAND

Mae Sot, Thailand sits on the border of Myanmar. Due to military control the situation in Myanmar is deeply worrying and frightening for certain ethnic minority groups.

Many people flee into Thailand for safe refuge and are looked after in refugee camps. This is a community that we have served with a number of our previous projects.

Whilst the families are relatively safe, education is often not available and the children that spend their days in the camps are missing out on learning.

A new large school is required for Burmese migrant primary school children in the area. It needs 11 classrooms, an office, wash facilities and play area. The actual academic side of things has already been running, but they are in great need of a new building.

As you can see we have designed a school accordingly. It will be a highly functional, well lit and ventilated building that will make a huge difference to hundreds of primary school aged children, many of whom have been through unimaginable situations.

We hope to break ground in February with a approx budget of £80K

CAMBODIA

A plan to build 3 new schools in deeply underprivileged rural areas of northern Cambodia. The areas already have academic infrastructure, but are seriously lacking in safe and appropriate school buildings. The 3 proposed projects lay within some of the most important wildlife and conservation areas in Asia.

We want to tie the support for education in with the conservation work going on in the region in a way that gives more support to the livelihoods of the community and interaction between the children and their environment.

We are working with a network of Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) community liaison officers, who work with communities to engage them with conservation and safeguarding.

We plan to use more sustainable materials (non-timber forestry products) bamboo and lime stabilised earth in the construction, further supporting the conservation of the forest and natural habitat of critically endangered species.

In this way we can show that development does not need to come at the cost of the natural resources that the areas are so rich in.

Our school sites fall in between two conservation projects in a belt of rural Cambodia made up of subsistence farming and remote forests and lakes. In the map above there are 3 red squares marking the proposed project sites. Across the border to the north is Thailand.

We are currently consulting on final designs with the villagers, the 3 pictured above are the current options. Each one costing approx £15k and will serve approx 40 children each.

NEPAL

A safe, bright and happy place for thousands of young women from all over Nepal to take refuge, seek counselling and access medical care. A centre that teaches female rights, self defence, menstrual education and sanitation, family planning, career advice and much, much, more.

Over the last 3 years we have been running a Girls’ Empowerment Program in rural Nepal. It has been a great success as 3 years ago these deeply suppressed and often abused young women would barely speak to a man and certainly not in public.

Many of the girls were forced to spend their monthly period in a shed with animals and no human contact, a terrifying experience especially when partnered with zero menstrual health information or education.

Fast forward to today and they are speaking on national TV and Radio about girls rights, taking on politicians, winning international awards and are true pillars in their communities.

We have countless wonderful stories of the difference this program has made to so many girls lives and the communities in which they live.

The attitude of the men in the region has completely changed, with fathers now fully behind the education of girls and their career choices. Without this program it’s highly likely many of these girls would be married off at as young as 12.

We have reached well over 5000 rural girls with the program and we are now entering year 4 where we are taking the program nation wide.

We receive requests weekly from girls in Nepal who want to join the program and schools eager for our teams to go and speak to their students.

We have received a great deal of media attention and our work and progress is discussed on a weekly national TV show.

We have changed the way young women can access police help and have ensured safe channels for the girls to use should they be threatened or forced into marriage.

It is a very far reaching program and I couldn’t be happier with the results or more proud of the girls.

All this has culminated in the need for a Girls’ Empowerment Centre. Currently we run sessions and programs in rented rooms and outside spaces.

In order to offer this program to a much wider audience, we need a building that will act as a beacon of hope and safety for these young women.

With visiting speakers and educators, and resource libraries for the girls along with outside space for martial arts and other exercise and meditation, this centre will provide space for the girls to recover, learn and play.

We were fortunate enough to be chosen by an international architects competition for this project. Thirty architects submitted design plans; the local team, the girls and a judging panel of architects chose the winner. It serves our purposes perfectly and would be an incredible boost to thousands of young women for many years to come.

We aim to break ground this month (January) and the budget is £240,000.