A catholic mission

Normita Thongtham

Father Joe Maier with children from one of the Human Development Centre's schools. The centre has set up 31 schools in slums around Bangkok which have educated more than 55,000 children. --Yingyong Un-Anorak

You must have heard of Mother Teresa, the late Albanian nun who dedicated her life to helping the poor and tending the sick in the slums of Calcutta.

Klong Toey, Bangkok's biggest slum, has its own "Mother Teresa" who has made alleviating the hardships of the poor a mission in life. Like Mother Teresa, this self-appointed social worker was born in a foreign land and wears the habit. But there the similarity ends, for Klong Toey's "Mother" is in fact a Father and for the past 25 years he has helped the poorest of Bangkok's inhabitants in more ways than one.

An American from Longview, Washington, the Reverend Father Joseph H. Maier, 59, came to Thailand in 1967, two years after he was ordained as a Catholic priest in the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer in Wisconsin.

After a year in Bangkok studying the Thai language, Father Maier was posted in Khon Kaen in the Northeast, where he established the Holy Redeemer Church in Chumpae district. While there he also worked as a missionary in the highlands of nearby Loei and Phetchabun provinces, where he became enamoured with the hilltribes.

"No lie exists in their language," says Father Maier, who then went to live among the Hmongs in Northern Laos for a year, to learn their language.

"I learned three languages in five years: Thai, Laotian and Hmong," says Father Maier, who even learned to celebrate the Holy Mass and pray in those three languages.

Returning to Bangkok in 1971, he found himself the parish priest at the Immaculate Conception Church in Klong Toey. True to his belief, "you cannot live uptown and work effectively in a slum," Father Maier moved into a shack in the notorious slaughterhouse area of the Klong Toey slum.

"It's right under the bridge, where they slaughter pigs," explains Father Meier. "To this day taxi drivers are afraid to go there at night."

Living among his flock, Father Maier soon realised that what they needed was more than spiritual. In 1973 he established what was to become his life's vocation: the Human Development Centre (HDC).

"It just kind of happened," he reminisces. "We were teaching catechism to Catholic children and began helping them with their homework. Then as we walked through the slums we saw that many children were not going to school, so we built a school for them."

Beginning as a single kindergarten aimed at providing the slum children with a basic education, the HDC grew into an umbrella organisation for 31 schools - 30 kindergarten and one primary, all located in the slums around Bangkok - which so far have educated more than 55,000 children. Nearly 4,000 students are currently enrolled in these schools, taught by 110 teachers in HDC's employ.

For exceptionally bright children who want to pursue higher education, the HDC has a "Special Kids" programme which gives them financial help to continue their studies up to the university level.

Observing people with cuts and bruises, probably after a brawl, in the neighbourhood, Father Maier arranged medical care for them. This grew to a regular service given three times a week every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, until the HDC procured enough money for a medical clinic that now provides pre-natal and post-natal care, as well as general health care, seven days a week.

Witnessing that Klong Toey is often the scene of fires, many of which were suspected to be deliberately started to evict the slum dwellers, the kindly priest initiated the All-Slum Savings and Loan programme, to help fire victims rebuild their homes before developers could move in.

To create jobs, the HDC started vocational training and employment programmes. These projects include Patches, which produces quilts and any fabric products it is commissioned to make, like the 6,000 Danish flags which Patches produced and shipped for a special event in Denmark three years ago. Slum mothers who cannot afford to leave their homes are provided with sewing machines and fabric, and the products they create are collected on a regular basis and sold in exhibitions and fairs.

HDC also has a Graphic Design department which produces graphics for a wide range of products, from T-shirts to placemats, with all profits put back into the slum community through other HDC projects.

Poverty often leads to drug abuse and prostitution, and the spectre of Aids in the 1980s prompted the HDC to establish a Community Health Development Centre, which cares for HIV carriers and Aids victims, and serves as a hospice for the terminally ill so that they may die in comfort and dignity. Father Maier does not only visit and comfort the sick, he also helps carry their coffins when they die.

As a sanctuary for children on the street, a Mercy Centre was established providing shelter, food and, most importantly, human warmth and education if the children wish to go back to school. Special attention is given to children with a history of prostitution and drug abuse.

The HDC employs full-time social workers who do everything from giving family counselling to teaching the community about Aids and drugs. To deter drug abuse among the young, sports programmes were organised and competitions held on a regular basis. Few slums offer playgrounds or other recreational facilities but Klong Toey now boasts soccer, basketball and volleyball teams, thanks to HDC.

And that's not all. The HDC also has prison programmes, which give assistance to youngsters in detention centres around Bangkok, and to foreigners incarcerated by the Immigration Department for overstaying their visas. Services provided range from finding lawyers to providing care and guidance for the young detainees, to distributing toiletries and other basic necessities for the illegal immigrants. One of the most popular items among the latter group are stationeries and postage stamps so that they could write their families back home.

Is there no end to HDC's projects?

"We are now diversifying into farming," says Tim Hague, a Canadian, who has been HDC's general manager for the past five years. "We have been given the use of a 17-rai land in Min Buri and we are now developing it to grow rice, vegetables and fruit trees."

In addition, there will be fish ponds and a poultry farm, he said.

A new three-storey school is also being built in Flat 23-24 in Klong Toey, Mr Hague added. The school will be the 32nd under the HDC umbrella.

"It's the people in the community who are building it," emphasises Father Maier, only too aware that the school is being built on land owned by the Port Authority of Thailand.

"The other day, the Port Authority sent the police to tell the builders to stop," Father Maier relates. What PAT did not know was that the police officer it sent was the elder brother of the community leader supervising the construction.

"It's like a game," the priest with the heart of gold says with a chuckle. "Port Authority officials cannot say 'yes' to the construction, but in their heart of hearts they know we are doing the right thing in educating children to become responsible citizens of the country.

"If teaching children is a sin, then I am a sinner so we just go ahead and build the school," when the PAT is not looking, he says.

The wish to provide poor children with education traces its roots to Father Maier's own humble beginnings. He came from a poor family himself, he says, "and Mom worked really hard so that I and my younger sister and brother could get good education."

Like him, his sister has devoted her life to helping the less privileged in the US as a social worker.

Where does the HDC get the money to pay its staff and support all its projects?

"God is merciful," the self-effacing priest says. "Kind people give us money for buildings, and the Archbishop (Cardinal Mechai Kitboonchu) generously gives us money to pay our teachers and staff. But let me put it this way: If we ask for money in the morning, it comes in the afternoon and we spend it all by nighttime," meaning the money is never enough.

"Only the other day I was telling my secretary that I did not even have enough money to buy a bottle of beer. And you know what she said? 'Twenty years ago, when we had only six staff, you said the same thing. Now that we have 220 people you are still complaining that you don't have money for a bottle of beer.'

"It may sound strange, but I can walk penniless for a week and no one asks me for money. Then as soon as I have 100 baht in my pocket someone asks me for help."

True enough, as Father Maier was talking the telephone rang and this writer could not help but overhear the conversation. Apparently a distressed nun called up to tell Father Maier that the Mercy Centre is now overflowing with street children seeking sanctuary, and that she needs a second building to house them.

"Sister Mary, we can't let the children sleep on the street. If you need a second home then go ahead and find one," Father Maier told her.

After talking with Sister Mary he turned to me and said sadly, "With the economic slump more and more kids are having problems. It is really frightening how the number of street children has drastically increased."

Then, as an afterthought, he added, "If no one comes up with the money for this second house we will lose the 10,000 baht down payment."

Father Maier has been so busy educating children and helping the needy that he seems to have forgotten to spread his religion. For all his years in Klong Toey his flock of Catholics remain at 200 families.

"In my heart of hearts I want people to follow my religion," he says pensively. "But all religions teach people to be good. For me, it's enough to see people follow the tenets of their religion no matter what their religious denomination."

Father Maier's untiring work for the community has not gone unnoticed. "Sometime ago a Buddhist monk actually thanked me for all he work I am doing for Buddhists," he related.

And in April, the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific presented him and the HDC with its Human Resources Development Award, which carries a prize of US$25,000, in recognition of their exemplary work which embodies this year's theme, "Empowering the Urban Poor".

"The ESCAP award was nice," commented Father Maier. "But the real prize was the Citizen of Bangkok Award given me by Bangkok Governor Bhichit Rattakul last December. As I non-Thai I am truly proud of it.

"Hopefully it will lead to the BMA paying our teachers' salaries."

Father Maier doesn't solicit donations for his projects, but he welcomes all contributions in money and in kind from generous donors. For details please contact the Human Development Centre, 3757/15 Sukhumvit Soi 40, Bangkok 10110, or call 392-7981, 381-1821. The fax number is 391-4968.