'There are many children who lost their parents to the waves," said Bhudit Maneejak. "Many more did not lose their whole families, but their parents were in a position where they had lost everything and couldn't take care of anyone."
Bhudit was more than 1,000km from the sea when the tsunami struck, safe in the mountains of his home town, Chiang Mai city.
Then 25, Bhudit was leading a seemingly perfect life. He had recently graduated with an engineering degree and landed a dream job with a good salary. His college sweetheart had just become his wife and they had welcomed their first child.
But after two months of watching news footage of the tsunami from the comfort of home, Bhudit could sit still no longer.
So in February 2005, he headed south.
When he touched down at Phuket airport, he decided to head straight for Phangnga, which was still struggling to rebuild two months after the disaster.
Driving north from Phuket, he expected to witness scenes of devastation, but the reality had little in common with the picture he had built in his mind. Most of the affected areas on Phuket had recovered relatively quickly in the weeks after the waves.
As Bhudit crossed Sarasin Bridge connecting Phuket to the mainland, however, a disparity in the recovery effort quickly became clear.
In Phangnga's Thai Muang district, he found piles of wood and tin sheeting stacked high. Large trees lay flattened on the ground. People who had survived the waves, he said, had been left with nothing, and without adequate support were struggling to get on with their lives.
"The people I saw there were soulless," he said. "They were still alive, but their personalities had been buried alive with their haunted memories. They needed help, and that's what I was there for."
Bhudit checked himself in at the Tsunami Volunteer Centre (TVC) in Ban Nam Khem and offered to help in any way he could. With his background in engineering, he was assigned to build new homes for those who had lost everything.
Two weeks later, he made an impromptu decision: He called his boss in Chiang Mai and resigned, effective immediately. He had decided to remain in Phangnga permanently to continue helping tsunami victims. About the same time, his wife Rasa followed him to help with his work. Their daughter, Leela, was left in the care of Bhudit's mother-in-law. She would rejoin the family three years later.
Bhudit worked with the TVC for the next two years, spending long days building houses. At night, he would visit the nearby children's centre. It was there, helping to run various entertainment and education activities, that Bhudit realised his true ambition: to help those children who had lost their parents in the tsunami.
In the southern provinces, just under 900 children lost one or both of their parents to the waves. Another 300 orphans came from outside the South. Because of the concentration of migrant workers in the affected areas, the parents of many children in Isan, and even neighbouring countries, simply never came home.
Many of those children were largely ignored in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, ineligible for the 11 million baht the Education Ministry had allocated to assist tsunami orphans.
Bhudit had only a modest sum of money saved when he arrived in the South. Now, he decided to spend it by leasing a plot of land in Thai Muang and building a home big enough to care for 10 children.
With his funds running low, however, and with no source of income, Bhudit made another radical decision: he sold his Chiang Mai home and put all the revenue into his new centre.
He started by operating as little more than a home for children. He paid their school tuition fees, gave them a daily allowance, helped them with their homework and made sure they had every opportunity they needed to carry on with their lives.
The children, all of them aged from three to 12, began calling him por, or father.
But Bhudit soon realised that his personal funds would not last long. "I went back to see my friends at TVC and discussed this with them," he said. "They agreed that I should open an official foundation of my own."
From this meeting, the Home and Life Foundation was born, and Bhudit started thinking up ways to bring in extra revenue. The first initiative was to open a small bakery, with the children making batches of cakes and selling them at Bang Niang market.
As the foundation's profile grew, more people started approaching Bhudit and asked him to take in their children. Each time, he said, the parents were suffering from a range of unique problems.
Still struggling for funds, however, Bhudit was forced to turn many of them away as he placed limits on growth. Two years after the foundation was launched, the number of children in its care grew from 10 to 15.
Budsaba Navarak was one of the first to be taken to live in the orphanage. The girl, from Ban Hin Lad, lost her father in the tsunami, which also wiped out her seaside home. Budsaba's mother was incapable of taking care of her, unable to cope financially or emotionally with the loss of her husband and livelihood.
- The Fisherman
- The Survivor
- The Rescue Pilot
- The Photographer
- The Searcher
- The Nurse
- The Body Collector
- The Animal Lovers
- The Returned
- The Benefactor
Budsaba herself was also left scared and damaged by her experience of the disaster. She refused to speak to anyone and would not go to school, becoming intensely introverted as she realised her father would never come home again.
"I was so shocked to hear that news. I did not know what to do. I cried for a whole month," she said.
Her mother decided it would be best for both of them if Budsaba went to live with someone who could take better care of her. At six years old, she moved in to what would later become the Home and Life Foundation. In time, surrounded by children who had been through similar ordeals, she started to open up more and put her life back on track.
A decade later, Budsaba is the oldest remaining child from that initial group of tsunami victims. She has embraced that position of seniority, taking on extra responsibilities and speaking openly about her problems.
Budsaba's schedule is similar to other kids: she wakes at 6am every day to get ready for school, returning around 4pm to help with basic chores like cleaning and watering the garden.
But she also has a special duty: working as the head barista for the coffee shop owned by the foundation.
"I don't know what the future holds for me," she said. "All I know is that I want to graduate, open my own coffee shop, and continue to play the guitar."
For Bhudit, the charity remains his priority. Rasa, a co-founder of Home and Life, returned to Chiang Mai two years ago for their daughter's education and to run a family business. But Bhudit continues to focus on the children in his care.
"I want to be able to watch all my children grow up," Bhudit said. "I feel like I am their real father and I want to make sure that I offer them the best future they could ever have.
"We are running this home not as a foundation, but as a family." n
TODAY
The number of children living at the Home and Life Foundation has reached 25, though only six from the original group orphaned by the tsunami remain.
Bhudit has capped the number to ensure the orphanage doesn’t run into funding problems. He prefers to keep the home small and personal, ensuring the children have enough support to achieve their dreams.
Over the past decade, the foundation’s reputation has also grown, and it now receives funding from private donors and organisations such as World Vision and Rotary. Foreign volunteers also donate their money and time, frequently helping to care for the children.
But Bhudit is determined to make the foundation self-sufficient. To this end, the coffee shop is selling baked goods and handicrafts made by the children, who also grow hydroponic vegetables to raise income.
In April, Home and Life made headlines as it opened its doors to Kim Kardashian and her camera crew. When she arrived, Bhudit and other staff members had no idea who she was. While Kardashian was filming, she was accompanied by 13-year-old Laddawan “Pink” Tong-Keaw. After returning to the US, Kardashian told the media that she wanted to adopt Pink, saying she had felt an instant connection. That was news to Pink, however, who politely rejected the offer.
Bhudit said the children at Home and Life do not need pity from the outside world. If anything, they are among the lucky ones. “The children here are guaranteed to be loved and cared for, and we are going to offer them a better future, a better life,” he said. n