Chao Thai Mai School Construction

This school is located in a village that is suffering greatly from the financial impact of the Tsuanmi.  The village is home to the Moken Sea Gypsy community, a group that has suffered from extreme poverty and limited opportunity for generations.  Seventy percent of the students in the Chao Thai Mai community school are Moken and as a result the school does not receive the same amount of funding from the government as schools in the area which educate the Thai children.  The Moken people are an indigenous tribe in the region who typically live in a limited market/subsistence economy through their work as fishermen, yet the Tsunami and subsequent decline in tourism has drastically affected their ability to sufficiently meet their needs.  This poverty is so extreme that twenty percent of the students who attend the school are malnourished.
 
Chao Thai Mai School provides education for 146 students from grades one through six. The building is in very poor condition with walls partially eaten away by termites.  This school is not only structurally damaged, but several rooms are considered to be unsafe for the students and teachers. The school needs to be completely rebuilt in order to meet health and safety regulations, as well as accommodate the increasing needs of the school.

Children who attend this school rarely continue on to secondary school due to its location, their limited resources, motivation, and the widespread prejudice that the Moken children receive from the larger Thai community.  Moken children therefore continue the cycle of poverty, unable to gain a sufficient education and skills to help provide themselves and their community with a more promising livelihood. This school has only seen one of its students continue on to graduate university. With only twenty percent of the Chao Thai Mai students continuing their education past the sixth grade level, greater structural adjustment need to be made to help ensure that these children are able to have access to the opportunities that only education is able to provide. Following extensive consultation with the school’s teachers and administrators, this project’s proposal for construction includes enough classroom space to enable the school to extend its offering of education up to the ninth grade. This will allow the Moken children three more years of accessible education and in turn greater opportunities for their future.

Cost:
The proposed construction project includes the repairs on one building and the complete rebuilding of two. The breakdown of the project proposal is as follows for a total cost = 6,400,000 THB ($160,000 USD).