WHAT IS THOMAS HOUSE?
Thomas House is a small, specialised school for children with special educational needs located in Tha Ton, north of Chiang Mai. It provides a vital service to a rural area with very few options for children with special needs. Before Thomas House, children were either sent to schools that were ill-equipped and untrained to cater to their needs, or they did not attend school at all.
With construction completed in November 2017, this November marks the five year anniversary of Thomas House. The school can accommodate up to 24 students and offers an individualised learning program to suit the needs of each child. Thomas House also offers placements for specialist volunteers and work experience opportunities for trainees in the SEN field.
Thomas House is part of a registered charity which incorporates three projects: Thomas House; the 'Continuing Education Project' which supports students through secondary and tertiary education; and the 'Community Building Project, part of the visiting schools programme to improve conditions in local schools.
WHY DOES IT NEED OUR HELP?
Funding for Thomas House is solely reliant on the support of the MRV (business) Project and charitable donations from visiting schools, hotel guests and others. Due to the pandemic, these sources of income were severely impacted, and Thomas House was forced to close. However, the children were lucky to receive regular home visits from the aptly named, Kru Joy. Thankfully, Thomas House was able to open again in June, 2022 and will be offering a 3 day week until they are in a financial position to offer a full school week. At present, 12 students are attending.
HOW HAS BANGKOK PATANA SUPPORTED IT IN THE PAST?
For many years, Bangkok Patana has been sending groups of students to the Maekok River Village centre for Duke of Edinburgh International Award, Geography and community service trips. When Thomas House was first set up, a large quantity of recently-replaced Primary furniture was donated to Thomas House, saving significant funds.
Last year, Year 3 supported Thomas House in three main ways. Through our Christmas donation drive, we collected sports equipment, stationery and paint supplies. The paint was later used by a visiting group of Bangkok Patana secondary students to paint two murals onto the walls of the school. We also held two fundraising events during the year - a Christmas card sale and our annual Timestable-athon - raising over 135,000ThB. With this money, we sponsored two students through two years of schooling, we bought and installed fans in classrooms, and we bought new school-shoes for over 200 students across three schools.
HOW CAN WE HELP?
You can contact Rosie and Bryan, who do a great job running Thomas House, at rosie@mrv-educationservices.com.