One of my constant frustrations working with some of the vulnerable people I serve is not always being able to speak freely.

This doesn’t only include what you read, but unfortunately any type of rich media such as photography and videos.

Often these are the most moving forms of media and it’s a struggle to raise awareness and garner support without them.

Because of this ever-present challenge, I’ve been very struck and inspired by a recent photo exhibition and wanted to share it with you and hope you’ll continue to pass it along.

Andrew McConnell, a photojournalist, traveled around the world and collected stories from urban refugees, including some from those right here in Bangkok. Watch the making of his exhibition Hidden Lives below:

You can also read more about the exhibition and view more of his stunning photos at Hidden-Lives.org.

Have a great week and if you’re in Bangkok, join this week’s Dinner & A Cause!

-Dwight

A small community is starting to come together of people with similar interests and I know the group will be able to accomplish much more than I can alone.

Part of the excitement is due to our new event called Dinner and a Cause, an idea that throws together people interested in volunteering or giving back in some way.

The concept is to bring people together over dinner and trade ideas about how to make a difference. To answer questions on how to spread hope in the city and at the very least get some fresh perspectives on the luxuries we all take for granted.

This is a meeting that’s overdue in Bangkok and the response for people booking dinner was overwhelming. At the first event there were people there who work with human trafficking, refugees, and even some animal rights issues in Bangkok.

The time was electric, we ate lots of good food, and even raised enough money for rent for two families. We’ll try and host the event every month, but we’ve already outgrown our first meeting place, so a few things to sort out before the next one.

Later in the month there was also a really friendly group of people from all over the world who visited as part of the International Society for Urban Mission (ISUM) Summit.

This was a smaller group and I gave them a bit of background on the families we help and tried not to bore people too bad before a fun time of making a hand mashed dessert and getting henna tattoos. Also a great time!

And that’s just a bit of what’s been happening lately.

As always, thanks for following here and you can find more photos on the In Search of Sanuk facebook page.

-Dwight

I recently hosted a team here who spent the day visiting some of the families in our care. At one visit, we actually arrived a little too early, where we caught the family in the middle of making spicy potato croquettes.

Imagine a spicy, deep fried curry ball with a crunchy, hush-puppy like exterior. YUM!

BUT alas, they weren’t ready to eat or even close— when we arrived they had only rolled a few curry balls.

Instead of lamenting a lost lunch, the team jumped up to lend a hand. They filled up any open space in the apartment sitting on the floor and even the bed, rolling, dipping, and breading the croquettes before they could be deep fried.

MAGIC. 

Not just because I got to eat much of the finished product, but because in a really unique and disarming way the team was connecting with this family.

They talked about hobbies, music, and listening to them discuss what their hopes were for the future.

Not an interview or interrogation, but an interactive conversation.

Show up hungry, ready to help, and prepared to connect in 2013. 

That’s my plan for the new year and I’m looking forward to having you along for the ride.

This includes more of our Big Bite Bangkok charity market where we raised nearly $4000 last year and some smaller dinner events to connect with volunteers interested in helping with our project and with others in Bangkok.

Jump in and join us if you’re in town. Wherever you’re reading from, remember you can also help by clicking here to donate the cost of one nice meal ($10-$25) a month to help sponsor a family in 2013.

-Dwight

PS – If you ever want a killer recipe for spicy potato croquettes, I’m your guy.

For the third year in a row we rounded up our families to celebrate Christmas together. A big meal, games, and time with friends and volunteers who joined to help.

It’s always a joy to see many of our kids and parents being carefree and our community giving to make Christmas happen!

Whether you sponsor a family each month or just casually follow the blog, thank you all for supporting us!

Happy holidays and looking forward to making 2013 another great year for our families with your help.

-Dwight

PS – See more photos of our Christmas party on our In Search of Sanuk Facebook page.

Six-zero, a number which blows my mind.

Believe it or not, we help a crowded tour bus of people live healthier lives!

A tour bus half filled with unschooled, school age children.

Many separated unjustly from their fathers.

So many it makes even silence on the phone with my dad seem novel.

The other half burdened by the weight of parents’ worries.

Parents constantly anxious about being arrested, money for food, money for shelter, and a snaillike UN process out of their control.

Tears.

A tour bus with babies to hold,

Wet, wrinkled auntie-kisses to accept, along with concerns over hearts, backs, and hips in pain.

This bus is louder than a classroom left unattended,

Then awkwardly silent with the second guessing of adolescence,

And in an instant–

–suddenly hungrier than vultures encircling the cast of America’s Next Top Model.

Whew! This bus is an exhausting volley between hugs and mischief,

And getting hit by this bus is advanced coursework in compassion, sacrifice, and head scratching parenting.

I haven’t figured it out, but I’m excited about lessons to come and busy planning fundraisers and projects for next year.

Get on the bus! You can sign up, show up, or donate if you wannna help.

-Dwight

On one of the recent trips, I was interviewed by AsiaLIFE Magazine for their next issue about the plight of refugees in Bangkok and how I began working with these invisible communities. We also talked about the challenges of raising money and awareness for families whose harrowing stories you can’t share openly.

They had seen a feature story on In Search of Sanuk’s work in Bangkok Airway’s inflight magazine and decided to follow me on a visit to a family’s home.

That day we visited a family recently sponsored and receiving $200 a month from one of you. The regular support has created many positive changes in the lives of this family since their arrival to Bangkok. Most importantly, financial means to get them out of their over crowded, flood susceptible, and hard to find room where they were often mistreated by their landlord and neighborhoods.

THANK YOU.

They now live in a safer place and have been bringing other families in need to our attention. As a result, we’ve already had a chance to provide clothing and food to a woman nearby who had recently given birth.

The family has their gratitude on full display when we arrive. All smiles, quickly revealing how proud they were to have us coming to wish one of their daughters well on her birthday.

It’s not long before they reveal their make-shift birthday cake, lighting the candles and asking for a blessing for the birthday girl.

I wished for her, on your behalf, that she would one day run toward her dreams. Her dreams to study in a real school and  her dreams of a new life for her family; one where they don’t live in fear of tomorrow.

Their tiny cake made of convenience store sweet buns, probably isn’t the usual aesthetic coming to mind when you think of a birthday. But there without the luxury of clichés which have come to override so many of our traditions, this little girl clinched on to the hope for a brighter future— largely because of you.

-Dwight 

Photo courtesy of Nick McGrath Photography.

Applying for refugee status from Thailand is a long process which can take two to three years or longer. In addition to not knowing how scathingly xenophobic laws and people in Thailand can be, those who flee here are also most likely unaware of the impact of their need to flee on their children’s access to education.

To explain, I’d like to share examples from a few of the families we’ve just begun helping and from others we have helped for two years or more. To simplify we’ll signify the families as A, B, & C.

Family A – This family has lived in Thailand for about 9 months. They fled to Thailand after their farm in the mountains was bulldozed and villages burned. They have all the proper paperwork which says their case is currently under review by the UNHCR, however this does not alone keep them from being harassed or indefinitely detained by the police.

The paperwork does not provide any basic provisions for living expenses and provides no substantial educational benefits for their four school age children.

Family B – This family fled their home country for the same reasons as Family A and have hidden in Bangkok for nearly three years while seeking unsuccessfully the help of UN agencies. After the family of 7 quickly burned through money they brought with them, the father found work as a day laborer where he could earn up to $6 a day. Three months after working odd jobs on farms and construction sites, the father was arrested and detained for working illegally and is currently STILL being detained two years later.

Three of the four school age children in the family were recently allowed study in a Thai government school after passing tests which evaluate their Thai language ability. The fourth and oldest of the school age children was turned away even after being eligible because she was too old to be put in the 1st grade with her siblings.

Family C – Here’s a family which has been in Thailand for three years. Their children haven’t been to school on a regular basis since they left their home country. Instead their children attend rudimentary classes for subjects like English which they already speak at home, and Thai which will not prepare them for life in a third country or even offer any preparation if they are returned to their home country.

Because their refugee application has been rejected, they have begun appealing the UNHCR’s decision but have been given no estimate on how long the appeal process takes. Meanwhile, as their status hangs in the balance, so does their children’s access to even the most rudimentary of classes which they can rightfully attend only once a week and are not funded by the UN.

If this paints a dismal picture of what will become of these children’s ‘lost years’ then it’s accurate. While there are exceptions where refugee children have been excepted on scholarships to international schools, these are rare instances where schools have taken interest in children based on test scores, fine tuned to reveal a ‘likeliness to succeed’ —which is more indicative of their previous exposure to education than their need or aptitude to learn.

What will become of these children’s lost days, months, and years spent outside of classrooms?

How many books, teachers, and precious minds will be held hostage by politics, legalities, and prejudice?

How long do we have before lost class time creates lost children?

-Dwight

I’ve had the privilege of being woken up by noisy neighbors in a one too many countries.

I don’t remember it being as refreshing as when I woke up in Burma recently.

Starting early in the morning and throughout the day people wandered into the neighborhood of closely stacked apartments where I was staying and began yelling, their echoes reaching the tops of the buildings.

I first wondered if people were singing some sort of hymm and I was fascinated by the chorus of sounds coming through the windows.

They were actually the sounds of commerce; kids collecting scraps, people selling food items, lottery tickets, and my favorite— a man selling durian.

To top it off, during the evening of my first night in Yangon, a woman near the corner and some children performed an a cappella sing-a-long. A collaborative lullaby, maybe?

By the second day in Burma, I was done spectating from the barred apartment window and out in the streets to record some of the sounds I heard.

I walked with a man selling brooms and was tempted to give it a try.

I also met women selling mattresses and I’ve attached a recording below so their voices can reach beyond the dilapidated Yangon buildings to wherever you may be reading and listening.

Didn’t take me long to find some inspiration from the environment in Yangon.

I couldn’t help wondering what I’d be selling if I had something to shout at the sky.

What would your message be? What do you have to offer?

I’d like to think, I’d be peddling hope.

-Dwight

… Helped with support to keep two families with 8 kids from being locked up indefinitely in the Bangkok immigration detention center. 

… Relocated a family whose underage girls were being used as someone’s personal source of cheap household labor (This person didn’t react kindly when one of the 11 year olds decided she didn’t like working all day long for $3). 

… Used resources to help families who are threatened with arrest or eviction in an effort to take advantage of them for whatever money they have. 

Unfortunately protecting the weak has come with unforseen and unsavory run ins with people who look to exploit whomever they can to get ahead.

I was recently interviewed by Stephanie of  the website Wandering for Good. Stephanie spent a year giving $10 a week to different organizations and writing about the different projects she was able to support. When she donated to us, her money went to help support the tutoring program for a group of girls we were helping.

Meeting Stephanie, who asked a lot of tough questions in her interview, helped remind me of all the things we’re able to accomplish because of small donors.

Thank you for your support so far this year whether you give online or come support our local fundraisers like yesterday’s Big Bite Bangkok, where we raised $1000.

Your donations make a difference and we’re slowly increasing our number of regular donors online. If you’re interested in setting up a recurring donation for  $5-$15 a month or want to sponsor a family with $60-$150 a month or more, please have a look at our donation page or contact me directly at dwight (at) insearchofsanuk.com if you have questions.

-Dwight

Dancing is a bit of science, a bit of magic and usually a lot of practice.

Not all of us easily master that recipe and even if we do, there’s always an internal voice nudging us toward overly self conscious. Maybe that’s why videos of kids dancing are so popular on the internet, as we’re forever envious of the freedom they dance with.

Peek into our Saturday School by watching two of our favorite three and four year olds showing off their dance moves in the following clip (or see it on our facebook page). This should score some cute points and bring joy into your day!

July’s here and I’m still focused on providing rent and food for families. While we’re on break a few months from our Saturday School, I’m building momentum for our next fundraiser, Big Bite Bangkok.

No matter what type of dancer you are — or are not —thanks for helping us spread the fun to these children’s lives.

-Dwight (dwight (at) insearchofsanuk.com)

PS – Big thanks to Jenny Simon for teaching at Saturday School and inspiring us to show off our moves.