Home seeks families to take in foster kids
The Nation 2011-08-19
Chiang Mai
The Department of Social Development and Welfare's Viengping Home is looking for 20 families to join its foster home project.
The home's superintendent head, Jiraporn Chaoprayoon Yamamoto said the home, covering 17 northern provinces, has in its care 580 children and youths, who were abandoned since birth, or whose parents were in prison or were so poor they couldn't take care of them.
Department chief Pakorn Phanthu said the 10yearold project aimed to provide a better environment for children to grow up amid family love and warmth. The department will provide a monthly allowance of Bt2,000 per family along with commodities such as milk powder, clothes, and tuition fees.
Viengping Home has 137 foster families, although only 110 families receive the allowance due to budget limits, while the rest have volunteered to do it for no money.
The home will host a certificatebestowing ceremony on August 20 to thank its foster families. Pakorn said the department will get funds from the Englandbased Care for Children organisation and can give a Bt2,000 monthly allowance to 20 more families to take Viengping Home children into their care.
The attitude towards the children was the important criteria. Officials would then assess if the families were ready to take the kids in, he explained, after which officials would visit them twice a month.
The American mother of four, Connie Cummins, 50, said she came to Thailand 13 years ago following her NGO employee husband. While supporting her four kids, she also worked as a volunteer to take care of the Sahathai Foundation in Bangkok.
Two years later they moved to Chiang Mai where she also volunteered at Viengping Home, adopted threemonthold baby girl "Nong Thip", and raised her until she is now a six grader at international school. Cummins also joined the foster home project to take care of five toddlers.
In urging Thais or foreigners to help take care of children from Viengping Home - so that the kids have a chance to experience family life they hadn't known before - she said one didn't need to have a big house or wealth, but love, to do this.
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