Sunday, January 28, 2007

The International Children's Day

Each year Thailand celebrates the International Children's Day the second week of January. It's a day full of free food& goodies, games and activities for children.


Due to political instability, the Thai military was present this year. However, the children seemed to enjoy themselves still. The day started off in the children's school, followed by various arrangements in town.



Amy & Molly get ready to have a dance performance on Children's Day.




Samuel receives a diploma for being the best student in his class.



Amy receives a reward as the most hard working student in school.




Willie was also acknowledged by the school authorities for his hard work in school.





Pa Tzing, the house mother hands out diplomas to children from House of Hope for their hard efforts in school.



The Thai military allowed the children to play with their military vehicles and guns...

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

We have expanded!




We are proud to say that the House of Hope has expanded to another house! We can stay for free in this house, which also has a fairly large property attached.


We now have roughly 7 acres of 'House of Hope-land'!







...as far as the eye can see - this is all HoH-land!

Thursday, January 18, 2007

What is House of Hope?

Dear friends,

Thank you for your interest in House of Hope. First of all we would like to give you a short introduction to what House of Hope really is:
* House of Hope was establish by John & Anne Gunn Broomfield and Inger-Lise Bjorkelid in January 1999. The main goal then was to offer rehabilitation and a safe home to former Shan boy soldiers.

* We tried to help these children, who had been trained to defend their war torn villages in Shan State, by giving them education and medical attention in addition to counselling.

* Later House of Hope expanded to offer help to other Shan refugee children, including girls and underpriveledged children living along the Thai/Burma border.

* Today 47 children are living at the home, and it is a true joy to see how they have found hope and a place to call home. We offer them a safe & loving home, education and medical care.
* House of Hope is a branch of a local Thai foundation called the Family Foundation, permit number 23/2544. We are a non-profit organisation.
* Inger-Lise Bjorkelid in the director of House of Hope. Six local staff live and work at the center.





The director, Inger-Lise Bjorkelid with little Nang Seng Kham Ngun (left).

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Jungle style New Year celebration!



We decided to give the children a real 'jungle style' celebration of the New Year. One of the pigs we raised was on the menu, and the meat would be roasted on bamboo sticks over the fire. We would all dine on banana leaves, drinking soda pops from bamboo cups. Too good to be true? Well, check out the pictures for yourself!




We started roasting the meat in the afternoon.







The children had a great time roasting and chatting around the fire.
















Dinner is served!






Here are the famous bamboo-cups!
I think we should get a grant from the
Coca Cola Company for this picture!

Monday, January 15, 2007

Christmas at House of Hope









Here are the shots we took at our Christmas celebration 2006.




Susan giving the girls the 'last minute' instructions.











Here some of the oldest children prepare the chicken meat for the Christmas barbeque.













...and so they began dancing the night away.

The youngest children had a very funny play - with a powerful message about compassion.