The central garden at Mercy Centre looks like a quiet retreat, but on all sides, in every room, there is action. |
The poorest of the poor get a foothold in an education system
that otherwise would leave them out
Story and pictures by MAUREEN PAETKAU and SUNEE CANYOOK
| Mercy Centre doesn't shut down when classes are over. Click here to find out about acrobatics, challenging play and English classes. |
They are among the 400 pre-schoolers attending classes at Mercy Centre in Khlong Toei. The Centre is the home of the Human Development Foundation (HDF), established by Redemptorist priest Father Joseph Maier in 1973 and the centre of a network of 34 slum pre-schools citywide.
Father Joseph Maier |
Without these schools, says Father Joe, as he is affectionately called, "the poor will be left out, because the system is basically designed not to help the poor. We turn the system topsy turvy."
Mercy Centre does more than give slum kids the chance they wouldn’t have otherwise; it also houses an orphanage, a residence for teenage boys, one for girls, three AIDS hospice wards, one each for adult men and women and one for children.
There is a huge laundry area, a big central kitchen, a colourful playground, a graphic arts room, a women’s credit union room, a chapel and the administrative offices. The place is hopping!
In that active, busy environment, what kind of education is taking place?
Giving kids a start
The new building at Mercy Centre, built with money donated by American James Cook, gives these K3 pre-schoolers and the rest of the 400 students a clean place to prepare for first grade in a government school. |
That classroom of five-year-olds is one of eight classrooms on two floors of the school building. The students, some who are HIV positive, all come from the local slum community.
Without Mercy Centre, they probably would not have much chance to attend school. "If you’re not registered, you’re not allowed to go to school, or if you are allowed to go, you may not be allowed to graduate or get a certificate," says Tim Hague, a once-retired Canadian who has been working with Father Joe for the past ten years.
"We find that if children get into the education system — they will stay, they will go to school." In fact nearly one hundred percent of the children from Mercy Centre’s pre-schools throughout the city enter government schools at first grade.
Social workers from Mercy Centre are always out in the community. "Every child that we meet," says Father Joe, "we say come, go to school — and they do."
A tiny boy, maybe three years old, his legs showing red sore spots, wanders into the room looking for something to play with. "He was totally abandoned in the slaughterhouse," Father Joe explains. "Look at his legs – they’re much better now. This kid lived alone for about six weeks in the slaughterhouse." He, like many other children from the slum, lives at Mercy House as well as goes to school there.
When kids like this get into class, they meet a dedicated teacher, one like Theeraporn Tokaew. "I come from here and I know that children here are needy," she says. Some of the fathers are in jail; often the children live with grandparents, she explains. "I think I can contribute what’s missing for them. When they come in, if we hug them, they feel happy and will hug us in return. We’re proud that they’re happy."
These teachers, Father Joe says, are now the well-dressed, clean, nice-smelling role models for girls in the community who used to want to look like the girls who go out to work at night.
Students and young residents design and create their own mosaics to add to the wall and develop a sense of pride at the same time. |
Helping the children get accustomed to an environment where they are valued and respected is a big part of what goes on in Mercy Centre classrooms.
K1 teacher Siri-on Najaidii nods toward a three-year-old asleep on the floor – it’s naptime. "She’s a clear example", she says. "She’s half German, half Thai. In her first few days here she was very aggressive, punching and hurting other students. I treated her with love, paid a lot of attention to her, hugged her often. She’s completely changed now and knows how to love and respect other kids."
In addition to socialisation, what academic skills are these kids learning? First and foremost, says Father Joe, "we teach them to read and write. We give them a basic education."
It is Khru Wannee Kijsawat, academic coordinator for all HDF schools, who sets out flexible guidelines for what goes on in the classrooms. In consultation with her teachers she formulates expectations for each age group. Classroom teachers fill in the details.
There’s basic literacy skills work she explains. "For Thai language, we begin with recognizing, then writing the letters. That’s followed by word recognition and rhymes. It’s the same for English. The kids learn numbers in much the same way. Addition is only for the five and six year-olds." There is also time for lots of physical activity, play and artistic expression. "Art is an important channel for students to express their ideas and feelings."
"Noh nuu-‘N’-nok, boh-‘B’-bird," recites one five-year-old when asked what he was drawing — as if to confirm that he’s living up to his teacher’s expectations.
Khru Wannee is very proud of her teachers – all 140 of them within the system. They use published course books for pre-school children widely used by other schools. They select what is appropriate for their own students, the classroom environment and constraints.
Khru Theeraporn, who has been teaching in the same school for more than 20 years, comments on the influence of educational reform in the classroom: "We’re changing and adapting, focusing on the importance of the students and their activities rather than the exercises. We should take students away from working only on their exercise books which are boring for them." Khru Siri-on adds, "In conferences and seminars, we look at ways to focus on readiness-preparation rather than only on writing and reading skills."
An umbrella educational system
"Khru Wannee (Kijsawat) is the boss," explains Father Joe. She runs a school system of 34 pre-schools and one primary school. |
The 34 pre-schools operated by the Human Development Foundation are located in slum districts throughout the Bangkok area.
Twenty-four of those centres now come under eight regions within the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA). The Foundation ran its own centres for a long time before the BMA helped, Khru Wannee says. "But Father Joe wanted there to be cooperation, so we approached the BMA." Other HDF schools are registered with the Social Welfare Department.
"Khru Wannee is the boss, and she is good!" Father Joe’s pride is evident: "It’s a highly sophisticated school system. They’re divided into different districts with heads of each district. They come together once a month for meetings and regularly for seminars."
There is a team that checks on standards within the schools — visits, checks and helps the teachers and the students. There is a health team which keeps health, growth and nutrition charts for each child, as in any school. There is a credit union and a co-op of the teachers.
At annual meetings, long-time teachers are brought up to date and supported in areas such as teaching methods, discipline, school morale and development of social skills. "We also work to boost their morale," Wannee comments, "because they’re paid very little."
When the foundation sets up a new school and recruits new teachers the most important criteria is a desire to work in the environment rather than their educational background. Second is the sense of responsibility toward the children; third is honesty. "We can fill in the teaching skills," Wannee states.
The new teachers are sent to train at existing centres for a period of two weeks. "Then," Wannee explains, "when they begin teaching, we send experienced teachers to supervise and assist them. It’s a kind of on the job training."
In addition to in-house meetings and training, staff teachers take part every year in seminars and workshops held by the BMA, Social Welfare Department and hospitals.
Khru Wannee has worked in the HDF system for 17 years. When asked what keeps her there she replies, "If what I’m doing has made a few children and parents see the importance of education, I’m very happy."
Coming back home
Nittaya Pattayata: coming back to her roots. |
One young woman who learned the value of education is Nittaya Pattayata. Is she a Father Joe success story? "Maybe," she replied. "I was a child around the slaughterhouse when Father Joe was sent to be the abbot at the Catholic Church there. He helped a lot of children – I was one of them."
She attended one of his early schools, then graduated from the Convent of the Infant Jesus. She worked for firms like Nokia, Castral and TAT Duty Free. In her spare time she volunteered at the centre.
Finally, one day, by then a wife and mother, she asked Father Joe if there was a job for her at Mercy Centre. "He asked if I was joking, then put me here working full-time at Mercy Centre as assistant to Nuri Frame, in the newly-established fund-raising office."
That office is trying to raise support for more than 200 kids – street kids, kids from the slaughterhouse, kids transferred to the care of HDF by the Family and Youth Court. Some students are already sponsored by firms like Berli Jucker, the Light House Group and Atomic.
"There’s lots more work for me to do here – and it’s sanuk." Nittaya explains. "I never have to ask myself ‘Why come for such a low salary?’ Money isn’t a big factor when I’m happy with the work."
How do you do that?A community centre is being rebuilt just behind Mercy Centre with the help of Father Joe and American benefactor John Cook. Tim told us, "Father Joe negotiated with the community leaders, ‘Look if we can rebuild your sala and your office into a nice structure, can we put a soccer field behind the building?’ They said, ‘Sure.’ "So now our kids are going to have a place to play."
It’s obvious that it’s Father Joe’s vision and openness to every possibility that attracts people like Tim Hague, circus performer Stephen Groh (see Beyond the classroom at Mercy Centre, page 5), and the teachers to help with the work of the Foundation. How has the Foundation built and maintained a network of centres on land that doesn’t belong to it?
"All of our schools are illegal in one way or another," says Father Joe. "To be legal, a school has to have a piece of paper at the district office. So we go in and build schools in slums, which is totally against all the regulations."
But, he explains, "there’s a gap in Thai society filled by good people who have been very good to us and we do the things that everybody else would like to do but are hampered from doing.
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| Tim Hague has been working with Father Joe for ten years and still wonders if grass will ever grow on this playground. |
"As a school is being built," he goes on, "good people in authority usually look the other way. Once the school is built they come in and bring us rice, food, milk, furniture, books … ."
Each month the BMA contributes 4100 baht to each teacher’s salary, "But," explains Father Joe, "the BMA cannot give us money directly." So the money goes from the central district to eleven district offices, who then give the money to 34 sets of community leaders. "And the slum leaders give it to our teachers. Not a baht goes missing," he smiles broadly, "and we get it all, always. What a complement!
"In 30 years we have educated 60,000 kids in the slums. We have taken the poorest of the poor of the city and we have given them an elite education. They can read and write by the time they’re six years old, and they want to go to school. They have social skills and they do well."
terryfrd@ksc15.th.com |