With Cradle we announced in February that we had started to build the new Pakklong School in Thailand. The digging for the school’s foundations began back on the 17th of December 2008.

If the children of the Kapong District are to develop and thrive academically they will need financial support and it is crucial that they receive funding for a new building, new classrooms and basic schoolbooks. The Pakklong School is in a state of utter disrepair. It has only one building, (which is over 40 years old and dilapidated) and there are only three classrooms to accommodate over a hundred pupils. Also, as the school caters for a variety of age groups, younger children are forced to share washing facilities with older students which means that they have difficulties reaching the taps and other facilities.

We hope that the new facilities will provide the children with the safe, calm and inspiring environment they need to study.

In an attempt to assist the building of the new Pakklong school Ola Nilsson from Festival Republic, was on site in Thailand to give the building crew a helping hand. 

"It is inspiring to be here and meet the students, teachers and the building crew. Everyone is very excited about the new school and once it is ready the new facilities will provide a much better foundation for the children’s education. I was based in Thailand for ten weeks and during my time here I worked a few days a week on the building site and the rest of the week II taught the students music and sport. As Festival Republic and Cradle supports two other schools in the area, Thahan and Ban Bang Muang schools I also had classes there.

All students were very keen to take part in both music and sport activities and it is with great enthusiasm they threw themselves into playing with the instruments, footballs and volleyballs on each occasion. For me personally it felt great to be part of this project and it is with great excitement I arrived at work every day. 
 
Below are my weekly updates from Thailand"
Ola Nilsson

Week 1      Week 2     Week 3     Week 4     Week 5     Week 6     Week 7   Week 8     Week 9        Week 10 

Two volunteers, Leah and Brad from the UK, joined Ola in his penultimate week in Pakklong. Leah and Brad were part of the Festival Republic volunteer project where two people get the chance to go abroad and work for a week on one of our projects in Thailand or Bosnia.

Read their blogs below:

Brad's Blog           Leah's Blog