Child's Dream at Hle Bee School

We have been looking at the Child's Dream website. This Swiss Charity works with children and schools in Thailand, Burma, Laos and Cambodia. From their mission statement "Our primary objective is to support projects that provide relief and aid to orphans or children living in poverty . . . . . unconditional means that these projects do not attach any conditions to their support (e.g. conversion of religion) and that children's nationality, gender, religion, ethnic affiliation, etc. is not a selection criteria. "


In 2005 Child's Dream went to Hle Bee School and were able to improve sanitation, extend the existing building and build a new class room. This was urgently needed as the original 20 pupils in 1999 had grown to 80. The roll in September 2006 was 145.


The Child's Dream home page is at: http://www.childsdream.org/en/default.asp

and the Gallery of pictures is at:
http://www.childsdream.org/en/pgallery-project.asp?projectID=28

To find the write-up of the project, select projects in the left hand window of their site, and in the completed projects list that comes up on the right hand side, select Hle Bee School.


Great work Daniel and Marc, maybe see you in Chiang Mai if you are about.

DfID Global Schools Partnership Exhibition

Natasja, Alice, Owen, Dylan and Amy were great ambassadors for Forthview and for the plight of Dau Aung San Suu Kyi at the DfID Global Schools Partnership Exhibition. Scotland's youngest MSPs came up to Ms Laing and said, "Your young people are so impressive. They know so much about Burma." I was very very proud of them.

Ms Laing

DfID Global Schools Partnership Exhibition June 07

Five Forthview pupils, one mum, Sheila Laing and Geoff Hart presented an exhibition of Forthview's link with Hle Bee School on the Thai-Burma border at this event at the Scottish Storytelling Centre on 12 June 07. Here Amy and Heather are preparing the Burmese children's prints for display - just before we all went for chips!

A Good Night's Kip Is All We Ask!!

Booking hotels at a distance can be fraught with problems . . . .
Is it the Ritz . . . or is it a doss house?!!

We found http://www.agoda.com/ website worked best for us. If you ask them nicely they show the tarrifs in pounds sterling which saves a lot of mental arithmetic and hotels can be sorted by different categories, including location, which means that we don't end up staying 20 miles from the airport by mistake on the last night with a 5am check-in the next day!!

Here's a photo of the hotel we are staying in at Bangkok when we arrive. What do you reckon - the Ritz or a doss house?

From Hibee to Hle Bee - thanks to Scott Brown!

Scott Brown is a famous and fab Scottish football player, who played for Hibs for 8 years. He came to Forthview on 5 June 2007 and spoke to each class about being a footballer. Many of the children were very, very excited - all those who support Hibs and Celtic in fact!

When he left, Scott gave us an amazing gift - a Hibs top signed by the Hibs team. Wow!

We are going to raffle this top to the children of Forthview - £1 for 5 tickets. The money we raise will be used by Forthview to buy a gift for Ms Laing to take to Hle Bee School. Our aim is to raise £150, which we hope will enable us to buy a digital camera for Hle Bee and to buy chicken dinner for the whole of Hle Bee School for a day.

Good luck and may the best child win!

Catching up with Chris and Dang

On Sunday 27 May, Sheila and Geoff took the train back to Newcastle. This time to meet Chris Robinson, the artist who has linked Forthview with Hle Bee School, and his wife, Dang. Dang and Chris married in Chiang Mai this year and it was lovely to meet Dang.

Chris was full of great advice about how to get around Thailand, how to deal with the heat, what to wear, what vaccinations to get and who to meet. In fact, we talked so much we missed the train back to Scotland!

Chris also gave me some amazing illustrated stories from the Burmese children to match the Forthview's children's stories about 'How the Chair got to Scotland'.