My name is Echansi. I was honored to spend 13 months in People’s Theater in Germany, as a volunteer, from to 2018.
The volunteers in this organization are doing interactive theater at a public school. That means we play a show showing a conflict in front of a class of students. When the conflict reaches the climax scene, we stop the play and discuss with the audience about what happened and how the conflict could have been prevented. Then the audience gets the chance to try out their own ideas and solutions.
Though this experience I learned to act in the theater; well, it sounds easy but actually isn´t, not at all, especially for me, a person that is not so confident to act in front of the audiences. Acting in many roles as well as learning the scripts in German language was challenging. My involvement in acting with the team also gave me chance to express myself in the discussions about the observed conflict, and to take part together in looking for the possible solutions for conflicts, both for the theater scenes and also in real life.
Working in a big group of people of different ages, backgrounds, personalities also taught me to be more tolerant, open-minded and open-hearted, responsible and, most importantly, patient. There were many incidents, conflicts and dramas along the year that I spent in Germany. All of these taught me a lot about how to survive and adapt.
Last but not least, I am very satisfied with my 13 months of long-term voluntary service in Germany. I would like to say thank you very much to DaLaa Thailand for this great experience.
My name is Thibaut alias Phu Pha, my Thai name. I’m French and I’m 20 years old. I’m studying engineering and after the 3rd year we have the opportunity to realize a personal project, the only “rule” is to open is mind and discover a culture different of ours. I wanted to be volunteer during this period because it was important for me to be useful and meet people from all around the world. The environment is for me really important so that I wanted to find a project which permits me to work outside close to the nature. I found this project in Kok Riang proposed by Dalaa association and decided to join the project to learn about gardening, bio agriculture and of course Thai culture.
I have been living in Kok Riang (Near to Hat Yai, south Thailand) for 3 months with Lung Jaeng the host, Panoi his wife, Yai his mother, Can his son and many other people who visited. Since the beginning I felt really comfortable because Thai people seems always happy, are always smiling, and Lung Jaeng family like to live with volunteers and share almost everything.
During these 3 months I learned a lot about:
Living in a community
That means living with Lung Jaeng’s family, his friends, Dalaa members, other volunteers but also with people we don’t even know. For example we are joining all the events or ceremony at Kok Riang temple and we served people, wash the dishes and try to involve people in the project explaining what we are doing in Thailand and proposing people to visit us.
We are also organizing some activities with kids, we went to the school worked on their garden but teachers wasn’t involved and not so much children join to work in the garden. That’s why we plan to organize more in the future. Some children went fro a Week end at home and it was really nice to play games and talk about Gardening and chemical and non chemical agriculture.
Almost every day some friend are visiting and sometimes working with us. It’s interesting because they are happy to share their knowledge.
And that’s because of all these people I learned so much about gardening and construction.
Gardening and construction
There are three different places where we are working in Kok Riang: the house with the garden, the second garden where we grew vegetables and fruit trees and the place where Lung Jeang is growing the rice (but I didn’t work a lot in the last one).
At home we are cleaning the garden so that everything is growing better and we can also plant some vegetables. And the other tasks are just about living together, cleaning, cooking …
At the second garden we grew vegetables, planted new trees and took care of everything by watering every day.
Then with a 2 weeks work camp we begin to build new toilet. It was interesting because they are doing everything alone and with methods totally different from European.
Thai culture
It is a peaceful and relaxing way of life where people are not creating useful problems. At the beginning it was difficult because I needed to change all my habits and almost to ‘forget’ my European way of life. But then after few weeks, I just enjoy every day without planning anything. It was always different, full of surprises and beautiful meeting.
It was for me a beautiful experience and will never forget it. But to understand what really happen here you need to come and live your experience.
My Name is P Can and I was an one year volunteer in Kok Payom village from 2012 until 2013. I just arrived in Germany in my old Family after having a very emotional Goodbye from the villagers and the Dalaa stuff. Staying for one year allowed me to understand many actions and to get involved in many activities outside of the normal life of a volunteer. Here in this entry I would like to share a small bit of my Thai experience:
I remember arriving in Kok Payom. I was shocked by the fact that everybody had a single standing house. Soon however I understood that the front doors are never closed apart from the nights. I was part of a real Thai community now. And believe me this was a big change for me. Coming from a city where people run after their own business without looking to the left and the right I was going to spent one year in a village where everybody knows each other. Yes in fact you always have to assume that they are even related to each other as there are only 3 main clans living in Kok Payom by now. These Families care about us volunteers and they host us like brothers and sisters. It is difficult to understand this at the beginning, but once you live there and you see the older volunteers acting with the villagers you see that they could be mother and son. I in fact also found a second mum and dad in the village. The people allowed me to join any activity. They invited my with a smile and patiently explained me what they were doing. Than even though it is there work in the Rubber plantation or in the Rice fields they let me help them and they are pleased seeing us being interested in their lifestyle. The strongest experience was probably the language. In the first month I didn’t understand a word of what they were saying to me and so rather than speaking I had to observe a lot and communicate with sign language. Than learning Thai by myself and giving it a try in the village was the most fun, because you could see the happiness in their faces when I opened myself to them. Trying to make sentences like: “Your house is big. Your house is beautiful. I like your house!” The learning went on steadily and soon I was able to speak about whatever I wanted. This were definitely the month where it was the most fun living in the village. And on my flight back to Germany I understood nearly everything the Captain said in Thai through the Microphone.
The experience was really strong for me and I feel like I could go on telling you about it for ages. There are so many stories to be told. I have also left many documents in Kok Payom so if you will go there one day one day you might hear about me. =).
If you would like to see more photos or read about my personal experiences you can visit my Blog:
www.silvangoesthai.wordpress.com
Otherwise you can always ask Dalaa for my E-mail address! I am burning to help you and your volunteering career.
Happy belated Thai New Year’s. Pi Chaba (Leslie from Belgium), one of our Kok Payom volunteers who just finished her term not long ago, has shared some of her thoughts from her voluntary service time with us.
สุขสันต์วันสงกรานต์ย้อนหลังค่ะ ทุกคน
วันนี้ เรามีข้อความสั้นๆจากพี่ชบา หรือเลสลี่ อาสาสมัครจากประเทศเบลเยี่ยมที่ได้ไปร่วมค่ายที่โคกพยอม และเพิ่งเดินทางกลับประเทศไปเมื่อไม่นานมานี้ ใครอยากรู้จักมุมมองที่แตกต่างของพี่ชบา สามารถอ่านได้จากข้อความด้านล่างนี้ (พวกเราจะแปลเป็นภาษาไทยให้เร็วๆนี้นะจ๊ะ)
Volunteer work, a story of life
It’s the second time that I am a long term volunteer, my first experience was in Kenya, I stayed there for 6 month. I thought it would be my last experience, I even wanted to live in Kenya forever but my work situation allows me to take 3 month to live again this wonderful experience but in Thailand this time.
The project was in Kok payom village and I lived in a place called Salaa and I shared this place with other volunteers. We were English teachers in 3 schools. For me, teaching kids was more a way to be with the kids by teaching them, and when you are with the kids, you meet the parents, and when you are with the parents, you are part of the village and that was exactly what I wanted.
When you know that you stay there for a short time, if you really want to BRING something to people, to the village, if you want to leave something behind you or, in this case, that kids talk English before you leave, you can be very frustrated, you can be hurt by the kids, by their lack of motivation sometimes and each difficulties you meet like “ohhhh today, what did they learn from me?” will be very difficult to accept because you want to change their lives but when you come without any expectations, except be with people, learn from them and live with them, you are never disappointed, every day, you know more about the culture, about the Thai way of life, the Thai food, everything is new and everything is surprising. Every Thai word you learn is a new way to communicate with people.
Finally, I think I Iearned more Thai that they learned English, even if the aim of each lesson was to teach them English but I’m not sure that learning English for them was so important because English language is just a way for them to communicate with tourist or volunteers. Also Thai and English are so different… I understand that they prefer learning Arabic language because with that, they can practice their religion how they decide, or how they think it’s the right way for them. Also, the international volunteers learned how to speak Thai so no need for them to learn our language.
I think to be a volunteer is not easy for everybody and can be very frustrating for people who really want to change the local life of people and it can be bad for the local people to see that volunteers want to change their way of life and it gives the idea that other countries are better than them and for me, as a volunteer, it was exactly the opposite message that I wanted to bring.
They have everything we can dream about: they live together, learn together and work together, a thing that we often forget in our countries and I was very proud to be part of this process with them.
Koh Yao is a Muslim island in the Andaman sea of South Thailand. Since it started to become a tourist attraction, there have been some big changes in the local communities’ lifestyle. The villagers started to move from fishing and agriculture to tourism industry-related work. People realized slowly the dangers of losing their friendly sufficient communities and environment issues are rising quickly. During these 2 weeks, volunteers will join the network of schools to help to organize activities with kids and take part in the realities of the local population. This way we hope to get more mutual understanding between the local population and the international communities and make a small step in a better direction for all of us.
HISTORY and REASONS OF THE PROJECT
Koh Yao is composed of 2 islands: Koh Yao Yai and the smallest Kho Yao Noi and covers about 140 Sq.Km. The islands are situated in Phang Nga province, but it’s easier to reach the place from Krabi in the East or Phuket in the West. There are other smaller islands around in the same area. 99.9% of the population is Muslim. The ancestors of Koh Yao community migrated from Trang province to Koh Yao Yai since the 18th century to escape the Thai-Burmese war.
Like most of the islands in South Thailand, the place became more and more popular for tourism in the last 20 years. Some investors, from Phuket and other places came to build resorts. Impacts on the local communities and the environment were not much taken in consideration. Nowadays they start to realize the loss for the social and natural environment. English language is an important tool for the local people. It is necessary to work in the tourism sector, but most of all it is needed to communicate, to understand the foreigners coming on their land, to get a chance to defend their values and lifestyle as well.
In 2015, Mr. Wira Suebpong, the Director of Baan KlongHia School and Mr. Anucha Ban-amad, the Director of Baan PruNai School, have set up a network of the 13 schools on Koh Yao to seek an alternative way to develop education which will support students to learn happily and effectively, as well as maintain the voluntary mind for their own community. The two directors met Mr. Boonchan Saengfai who invited DaLaa association and discussed the possibility to organize an International short-term work camp in August 2016 with few of these schools. The results were positive, we renewed the experience with them since then until the present year.
AIMS of the PROJECT
To support alternative education for students.
To bring awareness on voluntary mind and public participation among the community members.
To develop cultural exchange among the community members.
WORK AND ACTIVITIES
Organizing creative English teaching activities with kids with two different schools of Koh Yao Education Development Network on Koh Yao Yai.
Learning village lifestyle and increasing participation of the villagers
Voluntary service activities with the community
FOOD and ACCOMMODATION
Volunteers will sleep in school classroom or at villagers’ house (depending on number of volunteers). You will need to bring your own sleeping bag, foldable mat and mosquito net with you. There are basic toilets, showers and a kitchen at the school canteen. The teachers and villagers will help the volunteers to cook. Local people eat rice (or noodles) 3 times a day with side dishes like curries, omelets, local leaves and vegetables. Volunteers will be welcome to cook their own food using the ingredients available there. (No oven, only a gas and woks or pans).
The villagers are Muslim so there must be no pork nor alcohol products.
