School For Life, Chieng Mai. By Dr Hartini Zainudin

As many of you know, there is a team of us here,working hard, raising funds, talking to possible partners and experts, lobbying, writing proposals and Memorendums, so we can open centres of education for the marginalised children who are not able to go to regular schools. It is heart-wrenching to have these children denied access to formal education and we know that many social issues would be minimized if we could persuade the government to let the children have their own schools. Amazing friends and strangers are lending their support in countless ways even as naysayers and those who may not see the issues the way we do, protest and tell us to do other things with our time and funds.

So while my friends and partners are busy raising funds and preparing for our fundraising party at Carlos, the Pavillion on the 11th of July, my staff and I have been running around Sabah,Bali and Chiengmai, talking to possible partners and looking at school models that we could use for the same kinds of children we have here- they are everywhere and is a global tragedy.

So many, many children!

45 minutes outside of Chiengmai,Thailand, in the middle of the King's Forest Reserve , 156 children, 26 staff and a no of workers toil the land, live in family type-housing and go to school. The waiting list is 700 children long-incredible and just an indication of how badly schools like this are in need. How children are chosen is based on the dire situation of each child, background checks and only the most violated and most vulnerable are chosen- even then...

The School for Life, Chian Mai , is a private social welfare school under the Foundation for Thailand Rural Reconstruction Movement Under Royal Patronage- which means that all the street children, underpriveleged children, refugees, orphans, children from the tribal villages are under the protection of the royal family of Thailand- the Crown Princess, no less!

Our children, here in Malaysia, would need similar type of protection when we open similar schools here in KL.I worry whom we can get similar protection from but these schools must happen here, nevertheless .

What I love about The School for Life:

The goal of the school is to educate children to develop their entreperneurial spirit.An innovative entrepreneur is a person without particular resources who plays with an entrepreneurial idea and carries it out on the marketplace.The school wants to creat a setting that encourages children and youth to develop and attempt entrepreneurial ideas in a playful setting and without the pressure of starting a business. The children are thus prepared for situations later in life in which it will be important to create employment positions for themselves and for others in order to break through the cylce of poverty and discrimination.Even children who are denied a right to identity and citizenship the way many of our children are, would benefit from schools like this and could have an alternative, global education, with relevant life skills, and thrive not just survive!

The children bake their own bread on Thursday and Sundays ( thanks to an ex banker from Switzerland, who teaches the children how to fire their own hand built oven ( that's also a pizza oven) and sell 50 loafs of bread ( no more, no less) at the same time, same place.They sing and have worked with a German tv station on their own animated (3 minute) movie that is sold in Germany, calenders, documentaries have been made, the enter drums, song and dance competitions, drawing and soccer competitions and win!

They have their own bank, health hut, sundry shop, 3 water buffalos that was donated by a funder to bring blessings to their schools, numerous dogs, cats and fistfuls of determination, happiness and a fierce love for one another- children, staff and workers. There are Guardian angels- older children who mentor younger children, who ensure that the little ones are looked after and there are staff who teach, family staff, whose job are like foster parents and who take care of the children outside of school
( each family has foster staff and maybe 20-30 children, living together, and farm small individual plots of land and the 2 nights we were there, we were invited to eat in different family homes, as well as staff who work on the maintenance of buildings and the surrounding land. But the children work on everything!

The 2 days we were there, we ate what the children found, fished and collected from the forest and their organic vegetable plots and farm, ate with them, talked to them- they cleaned our rooms, worried about water problems, welcomed us into their school and held hands with us as we walked around the compound - us, perfect strangers, so that we would feel welcome! So like our NurSalam children, I ached and just wanted to hug and protect all of them too! We watched as they greeted each other every morning as part of their school ritual, performed their meditational dance so they would start their day, in peace and in harmony with their surroundings and literally ran to their classes, seemingly happy and excited.I had sworn that I would find a polite way to decline their invitation to rummage through the forest looking for edible mushrooms to cook, and while fish is one of my favourites, I really did not want to run through rivers and mud, hunting for my meal. All I could think about were leeches and scorpions that I felt were lurking everywhere- thank God, we ran out of days (auuwww, maybe next time- not) and would rather visit classrooms instead..and sleep and eat!

Jurgen, the founder of the school and who also was one of the advisors in the Green School in Bali
( another potential partner) worries about an international based NGO who wants to buy up the land surrounding the school and their land, to build a place to get children adopted- their website says the aim is to get a million children adopted..we smell child trafficking and will snoop around. What I've found out isn't good but this means ammunition to shut these horrible people down.

Which brings me to another thing...for you in Malaysia..buy the EDGE today- Sue Quek wrote an article on anti child trafficking that comes out today and it's a terrific piece.....