Cultural Canvas Thailand Volunteer Blog: CCT Volunteer McKenna Tychsen Blog Post (Hope Home)

{June 19th-July 4th}

These past 3 weeks I've been working at an amazing organization in Chiang Mai, Thailand called Hope Home. Hope Home is a foster home and community with the goal of providing a loving, caring and therapeutic environment for children with special needs who are a part of government social welfare system or families affected by disability in the community.

We work with the children to provide proper medical, nutritional and emotional needs as well as daily physical therapy, occupational therapy and special education. With the combination of volunteers and the full time staff who have experience in different areas, we are able to provide the children with useful resources and proper therapy.

The children we work with range from a variety of physical and mental disabilities as well as multiple health complications including: Down's syndrome, blindness, fetal alcohol syndrome, cerebral palsy, developmental delay, respiratory issues, sound and temperature sensitivity hypoglycemia and hydrocephalus.

Each child is unique in their own way, whether this be with their disability, or their personality, they truly stand out individually.

When I first arrived at Hope Home, I was overwhelmed with the warm welcome they gave me. Ryan, one of the other volunteers through CCT from Canada, gave me the run down on each child as well as the home and where everything was and what they do each day. I was introduced to each child and was able to slightly interact with them the first day to learn the ropes, however, some of the children were timid with me because I was a new stranger in their home.

As the weeks went on, the children were more trusting with me and I felt more comfortable to take on responsibilities to help out where needed. Even though we are on week 3, I am still learning everyday. Whether it be what needs to be done with a certain child, which medications to use or even just how to speak Thai. Its nice being able to ask so many questions and the other people I work with are very nice about helping me out.

Something that has been pretty challenging is the language barrier. I am taking the Thai Language class at Chiang Mai University, so I do pick up on certain phrases and words I recognize, but I can't completely converse with them, which I wish I could. But the other women are very good at understanding what I have to stay with help of my gestures and broken Thai!

I've worked with children with disabilities before back home in the United States, and I've realized that most adults don't really understand how difficult some of the most simple activities such as eating, going to the bathroom, brushing teeth etc, (to people without disabilities) is. We don't recognize the simplicity because it is such habit and we don't even need to think about it. But for most of these kids, it is a lot more challenging and some require assistance, so we are here to help them adjust and improve their daily cognitive, social and physical skills to eventually be able to do these skills on their own. Although it may seem like we don't do much throughout the day, bare in mind that these activities take a lot longer than normal because we are working to improve their skills, not ours.

A typical day at Hope Home:

-Start out the day with breakfast

-Go for a walk around the block for some exercise

-Come back and start physiotherapy

-Lunch time (for the kids who don't go to school)

-Some children come back from school around this time, take showers and a nap

-snack time

-Special education

-Play time break outside on the playground

-Dinner

(Then I usually leave around 5:00pm)

With each of these activities, we try and include certain skills that are catered toward each child and their disability. For example, one of the children, Phil, has cerebral palsy but still is very able to use his limbs (mainly is legs and feet) as a way to communicate. We have a portable chart with buttons where he presses it with his toes and the speaker says something in Thai/English. He knows where everything is on the board, so if he wants to say something, this is a good way to express his thoughts without actually being able to form sentences by voice.