‘Can you believe we made dolls out of talcum bottles then?” Nualnoi “Khru Noi” Timkul, 73, asks anybody who visits her shelter in the Bangkok suburb of Rat Burana. “We also made necklaces out of hanging leaves.”
battling on: Nualnoi Timkul at the Ban Khru Noi shelter she started in the late ’70s and has struggled to run ever since. The shelter needs about 6,500 baht to operate every day.
Ms Nualnoi recalled starting Ban Khru Noi, her shelter for underprivileged children and orphans, in the late 1970s. For the past four decades, this ordinary woman with little education has become something of a mother figure in Thai social activism circles.
She has supported children and helped them get access to education and basic necessities, and her efforts have received widespread acclaim in and outside Thailand. But her shelter had been running on borrowed money and Ms Nualnoi had shouldered the burden. By the middle of last month, she only had 300 baht in her bank account and 65 children to feed.
“You don’t want to know how much I owe people, but expenses here are about 200,000 baht a month,” she said. “What would I do without borrowing money?”
MOTHER FIGURE
The compound of Ban Khru Noi, with its toys, food and a place to play, sleep and learn, stands in contrast to the surrounding slum houses of low-paid workers and labourers. Ms Nualnoi’s improvised toys and methods of teaching the alphabet show the effort she puts in to provide for the children.
“We didn’t have a blackboard in the beginning. I used to draw water on the wooden tables to show them how to write,” she said.
But despite all her good work, Ms Nualnoi hasn’t escaped controversy, especially when it comes to money. Many have accused her of using donated money for her own benefit and to fund her sons’ education. Both sons are now in their thirties and have decent jobs in the IT business, according to Ms Nualnoi.
“Thinking of the daily expenses is better, in terms of numbers, compared with the monthly expenses,” she said as she explained how much she needed to keep the shelter afloat. “The shelter needs about 6,500 baht per day — 3,500 baht is spent on children’s pocket money to go to school, I pay eight staff 250 baht each, so that's 2,000 baht a day, and the rest is for food.
helping hand: Sixty-five children are being cared for at Ban Khru Noi.
“Some days when I don’t have money for the children to go to school, I have to sell a box of donated instant noodles for probably 80 baht, and that will go to the kids.”
When Spectrum visited the shelter, Ms Nualnoi showed us the book she keeps every day. Inside is a record of the pay she gives to 65 children, from kindergarten to high-school, ranging from 20 to 100 baht.
Shortly after we arrived, a woman who lives nearby brought her son to Ms Nualnoi, saying she had three more at home and could not afford to feed and send them all to school. She sells fried banana nearby and Ms Nualnoi told her to come back on Saturday with the boy, who she was willing to accept. The children are around on weekends, so he can start his orientation then, Ms Nualnoi said.
IN GOOD COMPANY
Ms Nualnoi has always cooked for the children. On weekdays when they go to school, she spends the day with some of the handicapped children, staff and her husband Wichian, who is in his eighties. She finishes frying some rice, and calls out for one of the men in his twenties who is visually impaired to come and eat.
“This one wasn’t born blind. It started when he ran away from home at 13-14 to become a garbage collector,” she said.
“He touched his eyes after touching the garbage and his mother said he started losing his sight from then, before she brought him here. He is about to enrol in a massage course.”
Another man, also in his twenties, sat down and played with plastic toys. Ms Nualnoi said he has a mild psychological development problem. “He pushed his finger into the electricity plug when he wasn’t yet a year old.
“All of these are curable problems, but because their parents didn’t have the money to take them to hospital, they didn’t get the right treatment and became handicapped.”
Several other men and women appeared to have physical and psychological problems which make social integration difficult.
Many have stayed at the shelter since they were children because work is not available to them.
Instead, they remain with Ms Nualnoi and help out when they can.
She said a few of the handicapped young people living with her went on to study at a special school in Suphan Buri province, but only after the intervention of a local politician.
Without that help, she said, they might not have had a chance.
NOT PART OF THE SYSTEM
Ban Khru Noi has never received formal support from the government because the shelter is not registered. Ms Nualnoi found state registration tedious and unhelpful. They ask too many questions and are too demanding, she said.
“This year the children stopped spending the night here. Now they sleep outside at a nearby compound rented for them.
“The district office came to inspect us and said that if we are to register as an orphan shelter, we have to have in-house doctors and nurses. Staff must have a degree in social welfare to work here, so how can I find those people?” she asked.
Recalling how the shelter was started, it seems she wants to keep it that way as long as she can.
“My home used to be filled with fruit trees. In the daytime, the children of workers left home alone came to take fruit because they were hungry. That was how I started to feed and take care of them. I have been asked by many activists involved with children to join their programmes, but I never wanted to. Children who stay with them have to wake up at certain hours and do certain things, but I just want to do it my way.”
Part of the reason she prefers to do things her way is that she understands the difficulties of putting underprivileged, handicapped and migrant children through school. “About 20 years ago, I tried to put one child in school, but because he had no birth certificate he was juggled back and forth between the school and the district office,” Ms Nualnoi recalled. “They asked me why I bothered with poor children.”
A WOMAN WHO COULDN’T SAY NO
Ms Nualnoi has always struggled with money, yet that has not stopped her from giving — some would say too much — to anyone who asked for help. “There was one woman who came to me and said she had HIV/Aids. She was about to be evicted and fired from work. I gave her 10,000 baht for her to deal with her problem.
“She was able to keep her job and she is still helping from time to time.”
Ms Nualnoi said she finds it hard to refuse people who need help because she knows what it feels like to be humiliated because of poverty. “I came from a tough background. My parents could not feed all of us enough and I was always hungry. When I was young, I worked in a noodle shop so I could eat. I used to clean the teacher’s house at the end of school every day so I could go to class.
“One time, a teacher’s daughter just poured water from the sink on my head as I was washing their plates, for fun. More than once my name was announced before everyone in class as my parents didn’t pay for the school fees that semester. I have seen it all, so I just want to help everyone.”
SURVIVING THE FUTURE
Ms Nualnoi said the shelter and the house of one of her sons have been mortgaged to help her clear the undisclosed amount of her debts.
a show of support: Deputy National Police Chief Pongsapat Pongcharoen visits children at the Ban Khru Noi charity home for children. Founder Nualnoi Timkul runs the home in Rat Burana district.
In the middle of last month, news broke that the shelter would close by July 31. Deputy National Police Chief Pongsapat Pongcharoen was among the first to offer his support. As a result of Pol Gen Pongsapat’s commitment, Ms Nualnoi will be able operate the shelter for the next three years, until after she is 75.
This is not the first time Pol Gen Pongsapat has intervened in her affairs. In 2010, he helped in negotiations with loan sharks to cut Ms Nualnoi’s debt in half, from eight million baht.
Last month, Wallop Tungkananurak, a member of the National Legislative Assembly and a former child welfare activist, revealed his team and officials from the Social Development and Human Security Ministry and NGOs had also provided help. They restructured the shelter’s financial systems in 2010 by putting two million baht in her savings account.
“I felt I was done,” Ms Nualnoi said. “So I announced the shelter was closing. I did not ask for help, but spoke just to inform the public.
“I’m very old and don’t have money. I have asked a few social welfare students helping out here on weekends whether they want to carry on with the work, but they don’t want to.”
On the quiet mid-week day that Spectrum visited Ban Khru Noi, there were still frequent phone calls and visitors. In the morning, a woman came with boxes of blankets, cooking oil and other supplies as she has done for many years.
Throughout the day, Ms Nualnoi fielded telephone calls about donations, telling callers that she didn’t have a car and adding that they would have to drive there to donate things. In the afternoon, a couple visited her and donated money. Ms Nualnoi gave them a receipt and spoke with them. They said they saw her on television and did not want the place to close down.
“After the news broke about us closing, some of the kids who used to stay here, who are now grown-ups with decent jobs, came to visit me. They might come back next week on Mother’s Day,” she said.
“Some say I spoil the kids living with me because if they want an 80-baht toy truck, I will buy one if I can.
"I think it fulfils both our needs. The kid wants the toy and he gets it. I want to give it to him and I get to do it. We are not going to be together forever anyway.”
rest break: A helper takes a much-needed nap in Ban Khru Noi, which almost closed before a flood of donations came in. Nualnoi Timkul pays eight staff 250 baht per day. Volunteers also assist at the home.
staying afloat: Donations to the shelter come in all forms, from small amounts of cash in plastic bags to larger donations through banks.