Thomas House Tha Ton, Chiang Rai province

Thomas House is a centre for children of any age with special needs in Ban Tha Ton, Chiang Mai province, in the far north of Thailand.

Two kilometres from the Burmese border, the town is home to several ethnic minority people who include the Shan and 6 hill tribe groups. 

Life is difficult enough for these people as it is, but more so if they do not have identification papers and have the additional challenges of caring for a child with special needs with no source of support and in most cases no understanding of their child’s particular needs.

Indeed, within their culture there is often a stigma attached to having a disabled child, that bad luck has been brought upon them and so they hide their child from view and so often the child is not properly cared for in the normal way as a member of the family.

Whilst I was there I overheard a conversation between the benefactor Mrs. Rosie Massingham and the lead teacher Kru Joy about one of the children needing medication to combat seizures but as her parents did not have IDs they had to pay for the necessary pills. They did not have 400B a month to purchase them. I later learnt that the same little girl’s parents had been charged 4,000B to travel 7kms in an ambulance to the nearest hospital whilst suffering a particularly nasty seizure. Four thousand baht may not seem much to us…. but it is two/three or more month’s salary for a whole family, and they just do not have that money!

The Massinghams , with the support of their visiting schools’ programme, have managed to build a simple school  for these poor children and continue to depend on generous donations from the many international schools that  frequent their outdoor education centre – Maekok River Village Outdoor Education Centre.  Whilst I was there they had students from Shrewsbury and Lanna international schools undertaking biology fieldwork as well as community service activities. The same day eleven boxes of school supplies, toys and clothing arrived for Thomas House sent up from the students and staff at Bangkok Patana Junior school.

Rosie and her husband Bryan are both ex teachers who taught in Hong Kong before they set up this wonderful facility which is visited by many schools from within Thailand and around the world. As well as academic fieldwork and multiple teambuilding and outdoor facilities, its big growth area has been the community service outreach to schools and local students, and, together with Thomas House include building projects to improve the infrastructure and quality of schools in the Mae Ai District, as well as a gap year programme to support English teaching and a sponsorship project inviting teachers to recommend students who need support to continue their education.

Thomas House, which opened in 2017, offers daily care and fun learning activities for the children. The children are ferried from home and back in the Thomas House minibus and lunch is provided by the school. Six of the children have now been ‘accepted’ back into their local school because of the skills and support they have received from Kru Joy and her team. Others will never have this chance and will need the care and the continued friendships to support them and give the social experiences so important to their wellbeing and development into the future. To this end support will be needed to provide an extension to the Thomas House facilities to give young adults their own space, a place where they can continue to acquire more skills, be more independent and importantly, be safe.

Both Thomas House and the Continuing Education Project have charitable status and donations in support of either are very much appreciated. In addition, Thomas House is always looking for volunteers especially professionals in special needs willing to give some time and offer the benefit of their expertise to the staff and children alike.  

As I write this, I am thinking of the many International Women’s Groups that I have met over the last 10 years and the wonderful work that they do in raising funds for Thai Charitable Causes. Ladies if ever there was a Charitable Foundation that needed your help, then this must be at the very top of the list. 

Please help in anyway that you can… Nick Argles

For further information please contact Rosie Massingham –  [email protected]