In brief, the situation is as follows. In Thailand some children born with disabilities are abandoned. Their disabilities might range from Cerebal Palsy through to something as minor as a missing toe or a cleft pallet. The reason for their abandonment is often due to poverty and to cultural and religious beliefs and the stigma surrounding disability. The children are frequently abandoned and left outside of the government orphanage, a huge establishment housing over 2000 children and adults. It is here that they are likely to spend the rest of their lives. As you might imagine the conditions are appalling and the children exist in an environment where the most basic human needs of physical touch, care and stimulation are simply not provided.

Our aim, along with CCD is to change this situation and to address these problems. We do this in a number of different ways. Firstly, with the permission of the Thai government, CCD have opened three day-care centres within the orphanages. Here, with the love and encouragement of staff and volunteers, the children can learn basic skills such as walking, talking, feeding themselves and playing. Secondly, CCD run their own school where children from the orphanage are allowed to come for the day, they pick them up in the morning, teach them, play with them, give them lunch and at the end of the day (sadly) take them back to the orphanage. Thirdly, CCD have built their own children’s home called Rainbow House and a number of children from the orphanage have now been completely released into their care. In this home the children learn many necessary life skills that will enable them to be integrated back into society. They also receive lots of love and individual attention! CCD first try to find adoptive families for the children within Thailand, ideally even trace their natural parents, or otherwise they look overseas. This has been a very successful scheme and many children who were once abandoned now have loving families and happy lives. Fourthly is the Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR), where families in rural areas are encouraged to keep their children and where parents are taught the skills necessary for looking after a disabled child and are given on-going support.