We’re so excited to share some wonderful news with everyone! We’ve been cooperating with Ban Khun Puai School in Mae Wang for the last couple of months and sending them volunteers to teach children English. Ban Khun Puai School has both a kindergarten and a primary school and while local teachers are extremely capable and great with kids, they need help when it comes to teaching children English.
Ban Khun Puai School
When we began with this project, children of all ages in Ban Khun Puai School only spoke a couple of basic English words and were very eager to learn more. We received many applications from English teachers to volunteer for this project and accepted those who showed the most interest in improving children’s lives and were enthusiastic to come out to the village and start helping. Here we would like to thank Qarla and Jonathan specifically as they had an incredible influence on the children. Kindergarten and primary school kids took to them from the start and soaked in the knowledge they so generously shared. A few days in and the results were amazing! Children learned something new daily and kept improving quickly. Now, only a couple of months into this project, all kids are at a higher level of knowledge and excited to learn even more.
Jonathan with his students at Ban Khun Puai School
Good knowledge of English is essential for hill tribe children as many of them will work with foreigners when they grow up. Ethnic tourism is popular in northern Thailand and second only to outdoor adventures. If done wisely, it can have a positive impact on local communities and bring work and resources to remote villages. This is one area where knowledge of English can empower tribal people to take matters into their own hands and make sure that they are the ones who gain, and not the ones being exploited by large tour agencies. Some of the children will also leave their villages and look for work in larger cities. Again, good English skills will give them an important advantage here.
Given how important this project is for tribal kids, we would like to encourage more volunteers to apply for a position of English teachers. If you have the skills and the drive to teach in local villages, read a more detailed description of our project in this link and apply for a volunteering position. If our online form gives you any trouble, you can send us an application over email to spicywildpumpkin@gmail.com. Summer holidays will start in March, so we will need more volunteers from May on.