Letter from Bookworms: Jul. 2012
Dear friends and supporters,
Sawasdee kha. Warm greetings from Phrao, Chiangmai.
We are in the middle of rainy season, and are about to welcome the lamyai season.
Lamyai, or longan in English, is a sweet and juicy fruit, which is one of the main crops in this area. Now, the tree branches are heavy with fruits, waiting to be harvested.
Our project has grown quite a lot over this few months. Some of you may have been following us on Facebook, but let me try to sum up what has been happening to this 2-year-old toddler called ARC. Here is the menu for today!
1. Sunshine Kids Center in Action!
2. Glimpse into Our Mobile Library Visits in Villages
3. ARC Library in Phrao Town in Need
4. Introduction of ARC Staff in the North
5. New Social Media: Causes.com
6. Help us to spread the words!
Bon appetit!
1. Sunshine Kids Center in Action!
The early childhood learning center for Akha children, now named Sunshine Kids Center, was born as a result of hard work of many people over January through April.
One person that we must mention here is Mr. Daniel Lockwood at the Dragonfly Community Foundation. With his expertise, we were able to build a beautiful mud house to be used as the classroom. On May 18, with our sponsor Mr. Katsuhiro Mizuno, 10 children from age 2 to 6, started to learn Thai and Akha language, basic math, and many other life skills. Please be proud, as your support has resulted in opening door for education for all the children!
2. Glimpse into Our Mobile Library Visits in Villages
We mainly visit book lovers who happen to have difficulty in visiting our library. Books cannot walk, so we walk on behalf of them, right?
For instance, this grandpa, Taa Inta, is 89 years old, and has lost most of hearing.
As his children are working outside all day, he is mostly bound to home. He is the only Christian in the family, and LOVES reading. The moment we bring the books, he immediately starts to read!
Another regular customer is this adorable girl, N’Waeo.
She is in her early teen, but is not enrolled in education as she has developmental disability. Although she cannot read, she is so happy to see books with lively pictures of animals and friends. We are planning to bring books with music and see if we could play an interactive game with her.
3. ARC Library in Phrao Town in Need
Our library base on the site of Warm Heart Foundation is getting too small for us. Now that we have over 1000 books, we are quite desperately in need of another place to keep some of them. So at the beginning of July, I have moved into a two-storey flat in Phrao Town. I will live upstairs, and the entire first floor (about 40 square meters) will be used as community library and office.
But as you can see on this photo, it’s so empty at this moment because we hardly have any furniture—bookshelves, desks, etc. In order to make this place appropriate for a library, we roughly need 90,000 baht (or 835 USD). We are planning to do a big online fundraising, so please help us to reach out to more people once started.
4. Introduction of ARC Staff in the North
Can you believe that we now have 2 paid staff at ARC? These powerful ladies are untradable assets for ARC now. Let me introduce them briefly.
Ms. Orapin Sata (Tuu)
Position: project assistant
“Active, straightforward, and fun-loving”
She is stationed in Phrao, Chiangmai, which is her hometown. Ever since she joined ARC as its first full time staff in February this year, she has been supporting me in countless ways: driving around on her mighty motorbike, organizing our library, preparing various documents, etc.
Ms. Ahmee Biapa (P’Nalae)
Position: Teacher at Sunshine Kids Center
“Lively, strong, and caring”
She is the main pillar for the Sunshine Kids Center. Three days a week, she teaches 10 unstoppable children in her village, how to read and write, to count, to sing and dance—simply to live as a happy child of the world. By the way, she is a great cook as well J
5. New Social Media: Causes.com
In addition to Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, we now have a new social media platform on Causes.com. This is another way to promote our activities, and also is going to be used as fundraising platform, connected to our Pay Pal account. Please check it out, join the cause, and write why you support the cause to spread the words.
http://www.causes.com/causes/788244-always-reading-caravan
6. Help us to spread the words!
Thank you for reading all the way through. Last but not least, all staff at ARC appreciates your continuous support. Children are our future, and we do want to help open their window into the world through reading, but all the activities would not have been possible without your support. We would be very happy if you could spread the words about us to your friends and colleagues so that we can reach out to more potential bookworms here in Thailand. Here are some ways that you can join our caravan.
- Monetary Donation:
We are currently in the process of registration as an official organization in Thailand. In the meantime, please use the following bank account. This account is to be used only for ARC activities.
Account Holder: Yoshimi Horiuchi
Bank name: Thai Military Bank
Branch: Arkhaan Yada (Yada Building) Silom branch
Bank No.: Savings Account 232-204-9202
2. Books Donation:
Please send any type of new or gently-used books (except for textbooks) to either of the following addresses. We are mainly in need of books written in Thai language, but English picture books would be equally appreciated.
Ms. Yoshimi Horiuchi
Urai Apartment 209
70 Krungthonburi Rd, Soi 4
Banglamphulang, Khlongsan,
Bangkok 10600
Thailand
Yoshimi Horiuchi
c/o Warm Heart PO Box 8
T. Wiang, A. Phrao, Chiangmai 50190
THAILAND
3. Volunteers:
Wherever you are, whatever you are good at, we are always happy to welcome you as our volunteer. If you are interested, please send your inquiry first. If you already know what you would like to do, please send your CV directly.
Email: volunteer@alwaysreadingcaravan.org
Our director, Yoshimi Horiuchi, can be reached at
083-542-7283
in Thai, English, or Japanese.
KHOB KHUN KHA = THANK YOU!
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Yoshimi Horiuchi
Director/Founder, Always Reading Caravan (ARC)
235/2 M. 2, T. Wiang, A. Phrao, Chiangmai 50190 Thailand
Email: yoshimi.horiuchi@gmail.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/yoshimiarc
Twitter: www.twitter.com/yoshimiarc
Mobile in Thailand: (+66) 83-542-7283
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