Success story

The centre that we visited last week for the health inspection is one where we have seen some of the most significant and genuine change as a result of the project. The centre was originally set up by the local community and is situated in a beautiful and peaceful setting in the grounds of a temple. More recently, the centre was brought under the control of the local MOI Sub-District Administrative Office who planned to merge it with the other Child Care and Development Centre in the area. However, the local community resisted this merger, and the centre remains very much an active and integral part of the local community and a popular choice for parents.

 

 

The Welcome Committee - my daily arrival on my motorbike used to be a source of great fascination and amusement for the children. Maybe something to do with the outsize motorbike helmet I wear. The novelty has worn off somewhat by now!

One of the key factors in the success of the centre, and of our work there, is the support of the Director. She does not teach a class herself, and she is very proactive in offering support to her staff. She has consistently expressed her appreciation of the practical training we have given, and her positive attitude and the support she has given her teachers has been instrumental in helping them implement changes in practice.

When we first started working with the centre, the children never played outside as the play equipment was broken and dangerous. As part of the project VSO have provided funding to carry out the necessary maintenance work on the outdoor play area. Since the repair works, all the children are given the opportunity to play outside as part of the daily routine – weather permitting! Outdoor play is such a crucial part of childhood physical development and this is a significant change that had been brought about as a result of the project.

In working with the teachers at this centre, we focused our work mainly on the teacher of the oldest children, as these children are within the original target age range of the project. She is a fully trained and highly experienced early childhood teacher. From the start I was very aware of the need to recognise her experience and be very sensitive in my approach when suggesting possible alternative ways of teaching.

In the first year of the project she had a class of 35 children, aged between 3 and 4, with no help. We discussed with the Education Chief the possibility of her having an assistant. This had been previously proposed, but in the end the hiring of an extra teacher to cater for an influx of younger students took priority and she remained on her own with this large class of lively and energetic children.

 

I decided that I could not make any suggestions to her that I would not be prepared to put into practice myself in the same working conditions. I worked closely with her to plan activities that were more developmentally appropriate for the children but still manageable in the teaching context. She was always very polite, but she did not hesitate to tell me when she thought my approaches were mistaken or unrealistic, and I always had the impression that she was very sceptical about my suggestions and quite reluctant to change.

Butterfly Party - as part of the topic on butterflies we set up a creative activity where the children made butterfly hats. We then held a butterfly party, where the children drank "nectar" (orange juice) from "flowers" (paper cups with a flower lid) using their "proboscis" (a plastic drinking straw). A much more effective way of learning how butterflies feed than simply telling the children or showing pictures.

One change that I encouraged her to make was to move away from doing all activities with the whole class to setting up a variety of group activities for the children, including free play. She was initially resistant to this idea, saying that it would not be possible to control the children in such a setting. However, she later attended a workshop in Bangkok (totally separate from our project) where they had clearly been advocating the same idea, and this provided the trigger for her to try the new approach.

She has now modified the structure of the daily routine, and is providing more opportunities for the children to be involved in practical activities and free play, which is one of the key changes we have been trying to support. In a recent conversation she talked enthusiastically about the impact of the changes. Contrary to her original fears, the behaviour of the children has actually improved, as they always have something stimulating and appropriate to do, and she is able to give more focused attention to individual children by working with smaller groups.

The Book Corner

Role play - a budding medic!

 

The Home Corner

She also said that she no longer feels so exhausted, and she thanked me very sincerely for helping her bring about these changes. After so many months of feeling I was getting nowhere, this was a real breakthrough moment and it left me feeling quite emotional! It provides an excellent illustration of the importance and the effectiveness of the long-term approach of VSO placements in bringing about meaningful and lasting change. It took over a year of working closely together and suggesting tiny, gradual changes for this change to occur. But now that it has, I believe it will last, because the teacher has come to an understanding for herself that this is a successful approach to supporting young children's learning and development.

Singing along

Last week we were asked if we could help out at one of the centres today. Our first understanding was that they were taking part in some sort of singing competition and wanted us to do some of our songs with them with the ukulele. When we got there today, it transpired that they were in fact in some sort of contest organised by the Ministry of Public Health. They had already got through the first stages and were now competing at the provincial level.

It seemed a bit like a mini, health-focused OFSTED, with various inspectors present, meeting with the teachers and members of the parents' committee, and observing what was going on at the school. Children were selected at random from the different classes and taken off to the bathroom to demonstrate that they knew how to wash their hands and brush their teeth! I noticed that the children were given copious quantities of fruit for mid-morning snack, with no sign of the ubiquitous crisps and snacks that the children usually bring to school and munch away on at will.

Our contribution was to sing the "Washing Hands Song" that we have taught them. We stayed the entire morning, waiting for our moment, which finally came just before lunch. The children were not quite as lively as normal when we sing, which is possibly just as well, but they sang along and did the actions beautifully. The inspectors listened for a while, and then got up and wandered away - typical school inspector behaviour! We don't know the outcome yet, but I doubt our singing is likely to have swung it either way!

We don't have any footage of today's efforts, but last week we did video the children at another centre singing along with the ukulele. They are possibly our most enthusiastic singers, and can be viewed here.
In case you are having difficulty identifying Old McDonald's animals, on this occasion they were:

• dog
• buffalo
• pig
• elephant
• kangaroo
• tiger

We have also known him to have a monkey; snake; frog; snail; turtle; rabbit; butterfly; dinosaur - as well as the more usual chicken, cow, horse, cat and duck.
Whatever else we may have achieved, we have certainly brought a great deal of fun and enjoyment to the children with the singing!

Celebrating motherhood

August 12^th is mothers’ day in Thailand. This date is chosen because it is the queen’s birthday, and it is a nationally celebrated public holiday. This year Monday 11^th has been given as a national holiday as well – part of the new military government’s drive to boost the economy and bring “happiness to the people” - so the country is enjoying a four day weekend.

On Friday we attended the mothers’ day celebrations at one of the centres. It was a real family occasion with mums and dads and lots of cute baby brothers and sisters.

 

Some of the girls did a delightful dance that they had been diligently practising all week, all dressed up in bright blue, the colour of the queen.  

Sadly, one of the dancers was overcome by the occasion and spent most of the morning sobbing in her mother’s arms. This meant the dancing troupe was one performer short, so the teacher grabbed a little boy at the last minute to stand in for her so her partner would not be alone. He rose to the occasion without a murmur and did a great job, but his partner did not look best pleased with the new arrangement!

After the dancing, the children took turns to pay respect to their mums, kneeling in front of them and presenting them with ceremonial flowers before being given a big hug and cuddle. All very moving!

 

As with any such event here, the morning ended with everyone sitting down to eat together, before the families all headed home.  It was a delightful occasion, a real celebration of family relationships and the role of mothers.

That evening, I came across a story from the BBC about a woman in India who swam a kilometre across a monsoon-swollen river in her ninth month of pregnancy so that she could have the chance to give birth in a hospital rather than at her isolated rural home. After a morning celebrating motherhood, I began thinking about the millions of women worldwide for whom simply becoming a mother is a life-threatening prospect.
 

Every day, roughly 800 women die from preventable causes relating to pregnancy and childbirth, with 99% of these deaths occurring in developing countries. The 2014 Millennium Development Goals Report indicates that Goal 5, which addresses reduction in maternal mortality and the achievement of universal access to reproductive health by 2015, is the furthest of all the goals from being reached.

Most maternal deaths are preventable. A crucial part of the strategy to reduce maternal mortality is ensuring that every baby is delivered with the assistance of a skilled health attendant - doctor, midwife or nurse - who has the skills and training to prevent or treat potentially life-threatening complications. Despite progress made in recent decades, in 2012 40 million births in developing regions were not attended by skilled health personnel, with over 32 million of these births occurring in rural areas.

VSO are making a significant contribution to improving these statistics by their programmes to train midwives in developing countries. In this short film, Lilian - a midwife in a small village in Malawi - talks about the training she received from a VSO volunteer midwife, and her tremendous sense of satisfaction and fulfilment at being able to save the lives of mothers and babies in her community.

Lilian with VSO volunteer Beth and a happy mother and baby

Benefits and Risks

The centres that we work with follow a national curriculum of weekly topics with the children. (The topics themselves are not inappropriate, but the idea that 3 year old children learn in weekly chunks according to a set schedule strikes me as bizarre, to say the least. But that's an aside.)
At the beginning of the project I asked my coordinator to translate the summary topic webs for each topic so we could have an idea what they were studying and help them find more appropriate ways of exploring the ideas and concepts involved. A recurring theme throughout the topics seems to be "Benefits and risks" - e.g. benefits of fruit and vegetables - they are very good for you and have lots of vitamins; risks of fruit and vegetables - if you eat too many you'll end up spending too much time in the toilet!
When it came to translating the topic about the seasons, each season had its particular benefits - hot season: you can dry your clothes quickly; rainy season: you can grow crops etc., but when it came to risks it didn't seem to matter which season it was, the main risk was that you might get ill.
When I lived in Italy, I fought long and hard against the idea that illness was caused by changes in the weather. But here I am finding myself surrounded by the same ideas, and I am slowly beginning to cave in. So it was that when I started getting a sore throat at the weekend I mused "Ah, that's probably because it's rainy season. It'll be the fluctuation between rain and sunshine." (Though thinking about it, that can't be right, or in the UK everyone would be permanently ill!)
I spent the entire weekend waiting for the sore throat to materialise into a full-blown cold, but it didn't. Neither did it get any better, and by this morning I was in considerable pain with it. Peering into the back of my throat with a torch I discovered that my tonsils were very swollen and a peculiar shade of pinky-yellow.
I reluctantly threw on my poncho and set off on my motorbike in the rain to the hospital. They went through the usual routine of weighing, taking blood pressure and temperature. (The scales announced that I am now a mere 49.1kg, clothed. Anyone wishing to lose weight, I can recommend the following approach:

1. Go to live in a country where you don't get on with the food - too spicy and meat-based for a delicate-stomached pescatarian such as myself
2. Discover you have IBS and cut out a whole load more things from your diet in a desperate bid to identify the trigger foods
3. Settle on a completely bland, innocuous and utterly boring but relatively "safe" diet, and take in all your trousers for the nth time.

Here endeth the digression)

The doctor spoke fairly good English. He asked about my symptoms - how long had I had the sore throat? Did I have a runny nose? No. Any congestion? No. Any cough? No. Just this horribly painful sore throat. He then peered in with torch and lolly-stick and announced what I had suspected, that I had tonsillitis. I came away with a week's supply of antibiotics plus two different medicines for relief of cough and congestion, despite the absence of any such symptoms. They do like to prescribe generously here!
I have spent a quiet day at home and will probably do the same tomorrow, just to knock it on the head. I don't want to go spreading germs to the little kiddies, even though they probably gave it to me in the first place! Benefits and risks of working with young children....

Where there's a will...

Over the last few months I have been working together with a small local community-based organisation on a pilot program aimed at enabling more migrant children of pre-school age to enrol in the Thai education system. Most of the organisations working to support migrant education here on the border concentrate on the older students, and there has been very little attention paid to the early years of schooling. This is why VSO decided to carry out the Early Childhood Development project in the first place, as they recognised this gap in provision for the youngest children.

For migrant children whose families are likely to be here in Thailand long term, the best hope for future integration in society is through successful schooling in the Thai education system. Many migrant children begin their education in migrant learning centres and later attempt to transfer into  Thai schools. One of the biggest challenges for them is attaining the required level of Thai language.

The organisation that I have been collaborating with over the last few months - Migrant Education - supports a number of migrant learning centres in and around Mae Sot. They place particular emphasis on helping the migrant learning centres to prepare students for successful transition into Thai schools.
The pilot program aims to get more migrant children into the Thai system right at the beginning of their schooling. We have been working together with the local Ministry of Interior education department in one of the sub-district areas where I am doing my project to explore ways to increase the capacity of the two child-care and development centres to enrol more migrant children over the next few years.

As is to be expected when working with government departments, the whole process is taking rather longer than we anticipated, and we are still ironing out the final details of the working agreement. We are also very conscious of the great uncertainty surrounding the future for migrants due to the recent political changes here in Thailand. It is far from clear whether migrant children will continue to be permitted the level of access to education in the Thai system that they were granted under the Education for All policy.

Nevertheless, we are persisting, driven by a firm belief in the power of education to bring about lasting and positive change. This is a belief that has been echoed by many voices in recent weeks. As the Millennium Development Goals are drawing to a close, there seems to be a flurry of attention given to goals not yet reached. Currently, 58 million children worldwide remain out of school, and Unesco recently gave a very pessimistic prediction about the possibility of achieving the key MD goal of universal primary education by 2015.

However, despite this bleak outlook, there are many examples of countries, each facing their own particular challenges, that have shown the political will to bring about change. In Ghana, the number of children enrolled in school increased from 2.4 million in 1999 to 4.1 million last year, as a result of a doubling in spending on education. Other actions taken by governments around the world to increase enrolment levels include a drive in Morocco to support ethnic and linguistic minorities by introducing the teaching of the local language in primary schools; the abolition of school fees in Burundi; and the introduction of a new curriculum in Vietnam focused on disadvantaged pupils. (See The Guardian - Global Development- Thursday 26 June 2014).
Of course, just getting children into school is only a first step. Measures also need to be taken to ensure that they are able to continue their schooling, and that the education that is provided is of a quality that will provide them with the skills and knowledge that they need to succeed in life.

I am very conscious that the work that I am involved with is the tiniest of tiny drops in the ocean of the problem to be tackled. However, the examples of the countries above illustrate what can be achieved when the political will is there. Unesco's director general, Irina Bokova, called on others to learn from the experiences of countries like Burundi and Ghana: "Real progress is possible and we owe it to children to pursue it."

School Trip

This weekend is the Buddhist Lent festival, and today the children at the centre we are working with this week went to the temple to celebrate, together with the local school and many other members of the community.

All dressed up and ready to go!

We set off at 9.00 and walked the few yards down the road to the temple. No one else had arrived, as the rest of the gathering were first processing around the village with music and floats, so we sat down to wait... and wait.... and wait. The children amused themselves by running around the open space of the temple and climbing on the furniture, as 3-year old children will.

Arriving at the temple

They sat down quietly for a few minutes at least!

 

These chairs were great for climbing on

 

Around 10.00 the teacher in me began to think "These children are all going to start needing the toilet soon. I hope we don't get lots of little puddles on the temple floor..." By 10.30 there was still no sign of anything happening, so a decision was made to take the children back to the centre and give them an early lunch and then return when the procession arrived.

The children duly had their lunch, we sang our entire repertoire of songs with the ukulele and they sat down to watch TV while the teachers had some lunch, before the procession finally appeared at mid-day going down the road past the centre.

We all trooped back to the temple to join the ceremony, which is one of bringing gifts of money and food to the temple. It also seems to involve spectacularly large candles.

 

 Something happening at last!

 

 The arrival of the giant candle

 

The leaves of these decorative "trees" are bank notes.  Visually creative giving!

It was not an especially long ceremony, but one little girl did fall asleep, and who can blame her - that is their usual routine after lunch!

Getting back into the swing of things

In the middle of my film-making efforts, my computer started playing up. I think it was finding the whole process as stressful as I was. I even encountered the dreaded Blue Screen of Death for the first time, followed later by a message I had not seen before: "Windows has recovered from an unexpected shutdown." Having been through a rather rocky patch over the last month or so, with high levels of stress and anxiety and occasional moments when I was ready to pack it all in and come home, I think I can now say that I have recovered from my unexpected shutdown. My computer also seems to be back to normal!

Having left the teachers in peace during the month of May so that they could settle the new children in, we resumed our normal rounds of visits in June. At some centres we were encouraged to see that they were continuing to apply some of the ideas that we had shared, even after the school break in April. At others, progress seemed to have slipped back, and we felt as if we were starting again.

On Saturday we held our third workshop for all the teachers. This one focused on curriculum planning, physical development and creative activities. As usual, it was all very hands on, and teachers found themselves hopping around like frogs and being creative with potato printing, in between planning practical activities for curriculum delivery.

The creative activities session was designed to encourage teachers to see the value in allowing children to experiment with materials and be genuinely creative, rather than controlling the activity to such an extent that all children produce an identical piece of work, which tends to be the usual approach:

A fine example of what we are trying to encourage them NOT to do!

We discussed the importance of helping children to grow up to be independent thinkers and problem-solvers, and the role of creative activities in developing these skills and attitudes, before letting the teachers loose on a whole variety of materials with no specific instructions other than to be creative. I was quite impressed, given their usual tendency to be very formulaic in their approach to any creative challenge. They seemed to be taking the message on board. We'll see what happens in the classroom...

 

The workshop all went very well and according to plan, but I was glad to see it over as I was rather under the weather with some sort of stomach upset. I got through the day courtesy of Paracetamol and Loperamide, and collapsed gratefully into bed for the rest of the evening once I got home.