Baan Mitratorn and Princess Ubolrat School in Chaing Doa

Baan Mitratorn is a Catholic Aids/HIV orphanage in Chaing Doa, that takes in children with Aids/HIV or who have been affected by it. In the little I saw of the orphanage and from reading some of the stories about the kids, it seems that they are well taken care of and given every chance to succeed. They all receive anti-viral medication and is provided free of charge by the Thai government for all Thai citizens with Aids/HIV. When they are young the people running the orphanage only teach the children that they are sick, like how everyone gets sick, and that they need to try and keep their body healthy by taking the medication and taking precautions to keep themselves healthy. As they get older and can comprehend more, they are taught more about their illness until they can fully understand it and accept that it is a part of their life. They are also given an education at a nearby school called Princess Ubolrat School and treated like everyone else and are not discriminated against because of their illness. Some of the classes at the school are in place so that if they do not excel in studying and do not plan on going to a university they still have options. Some of those classes are crafts and agriculture as well as English, which can help with any job that has contact with tourists.



The school is a Catholic school so I expected much of it to be based on Western Education, but was pleasantly surprised with some of the ways it was run. For example the teaching of other subjects besides the traditional ones, like crafts and agriculture. They were teaching the students about life skills that they would need if they didn't go on to university. In the states many of the schools I have seen or talked to people about, do not always offer other options. I think this is partially because we put so much emphasis on standardized testing, that there is not enough room in the curriculum for practical skills. When talking to the English teacher I found out that while there is a standardized test here in Thailand that focuses on Math, Science, English, Thai, and Social, at the school they do not worry about the test results as much because they are working with students that are not as privileged as other children in Thailand. Also because it is a Catholic school they focus a lot on how to live their lives with moral and self sufficiency. When I get home I plan on talking to some friends who attend Catholic school in the states to see how it might compare to this Catholic school in Thailand. Like how they start their day with all of the students and reciting a Catholic prayer, the focus on morals and living your life by them, and the inclusiveness of everyone.


Another wonderful thing about this school is the inclusive feeling it gives. None of the children who have HIV/Aids or who are affected by it are discriminated against and the people from the hill tribes are welcomed and show their pride by wearing their traditional clothing every Friday. It will be interesting to see how other schools act toward their hill tribe population and how the hill tribe schooling differs from the city schooling. There is even a room at the school filled with clothing from the different hill tribes and artifacts from them as well as a few paragraphs about them.

Like many schools I have seen and heard about in the states money can be problem, especially since many of the students at the school are from the orphanage and do not have money for schooling. In the library most of the books there are donated from Bangkok and are school books. While they did not have a ton of books, the school still looked to be in pretty good shape, with white boards and computers, although the computers did not have Internet which is something I expected in the smaller towns. One thing the school did have though, was good teachers, at least the one that I was able to observe. He taught agriculture and while I can not speak Thai to be able to understand him, he seemed to be doing a good job. First off the students were outside and physically looking at and touching a tree and soil, what they were learning about. They were not inside learning about it from a book in a stuffy classroom. When looking at the students they seemed engaged, at least as much as can be expected when there are two white students present. This was one of the many times that I wished that I spoke Thai, I am interested in how he presented the topic and how he kept them captivated about what he was saying.

I'm excited to see how the other schools I see in Thailand compare to this one, especially the one in the Karen village. The Karen people are one of the hill tribes and one of our next locations, and I am interested to see how much it differs from the city and village schools.