Mae Ai Home Care March 2017

Visits to Mae Ai entails a 4 hour drive from Chiang Mai which necessitates an overnight stay in a guest house in Fang.

On this trip the team stopped at Mae Ai hospital to pick up healthcare volunteer workers, Deang and Loy, before visiting 3 young HIV patients Somjit, Aesara and Kasemsuk.

Air pollution getting worse!

On Wednesday 8th of March 2017, Rejoice Charity together with volunteer, Chaleow from "Welcome to Royal Mountain" group at Chiang Dao Hospital, visited houses of the people infected with HIV/Aids. The first patient is incapable of taking care of herself, so she can’t move out of her bed since she is very sick. She has just started taking anti-virus medication. With her being quite ill and weak, she needs more attention in order to see if she can tolerate the ARV medicine, if not, other medicines will be tried which hopefully will not have similar side effects. We will keep an eye on her until she becomes better and able to take care of herself. 

On Tuesday the 28th of March 2017, Rejoice Charity had an appointment at Chai Prakan Hospital to meet the new Chai Prakan HIV volunteer health care group. Although much smaller than Chiang Dao HIV volunteer group, it is based on similar objectives. The group of three, Aoi, Som and Yut, call themselves The Chaiprakan Yim Soo Group (Fighting HIV with a Smile).

The plan was to visit patients in Baan Makham Pom, a Lahu village in the hills on the Myanmar border with Shan State. Makham Pom (มะขามป้อม) is the Thai name for the fruit of a tree commonly known as 'Indian gooseberry'.

Aliyna (nick name Mouk) is 13 years old and lives in a small village near Wiang Haeng, close to the Myanmar border, with her grandmother who is 78 years old. At birth she acquired HIV from her mother.  Both her mother and father have since died as a result of AIDS. 

 Last year, while Alinya was studying in grade 6 at Baan Wiang Haeng School her grandma had an accident and broke her leg.  Alinya had to take care of her grandma and had to stop school mid-term. 

The Rejoice team left Chiang Mai for the 4 hour journey to Mai Ai.  The first port of call was Mae Ai hospital, a small rural hospital on the main road between Thaton  and Fang.  Here the team met up with HIV volunteer healthcare workers Deang and Loy.

After a quick roadside lunch it was off to the Mekok River Village Resort to meet Rosie Massingham, Community Project Coordinator to discuss arrangements for the annual visit of pre-medical students from Bankok Patana International school and and also this year Repton School Dubai. The objective for the schools is to introduce their international pre-med students to health care in the rural areas of Thailand, in particular the care of people living with HIV. 

Microsoft SWAY 

Office Sway is a presentation program and is part of the Microsoft Office family of products. Generally released by Microsoft in August 2015, Sway allows users who have a Microsoft account to combine text and media to create a presentable website. Users can pull content locally from the device in use, or from internet sources such as Bing, Facebook, OneDrive, and YouTube.

Here is a SWAY link to the archived Rejoice Newsletters

The following embedded Rejoice presentation has been made using SWAY.

Education at Baan Mae Na School

Teens nowadays don’t have proper knowledge on sex education and they lack of self-control. This causes teen pregnancy which in Thai culture isn’t very accepted. Of course there are ways of solving these problems but there would be side effects that can be bad for their health. If teenagers have the proper knowledge on this particular topic, they wouldn’t have to deal with these problems such as teen pregnancy and STD’s. “Not having sexual intercourse is the best way to protect yourself from teen pregnancy and STD’s but not everyone will choose the right way.”

Self Help at Chiang Dao Hospital

On Tuesday the 10th of January 2017, The Soo Kwan Doi Luang HIV Volunteer Self-help group held their annual get-together at Chiang Dao Hospital HIV clinic. These meetings are popular with the HIV patients, many of whom live in the more remote areas of Chiang Dao district.  The patients can renew acquaintances from previous meetings and share stories of their experiences of “Living with HIV”. Lunch was provided for all, and new members (newly infected) were encouraged to talk to the more experienced members and ask questions and get to know each other.

Mae Ho Nursery New Year Party

On Friday the 30^th of December 2016, Mae Ho Migrant Daycare Nursery collaborated with Rejoice Charity to host a New Year’s Party for children and their parents. The teacher, Kru Rath, asked us to convey her gratitude to Carol Foo from Singapore FRS (Friends Rejoice of Singapore) who contributes fruit, milk, eggs and provisions each month.  The parents helped to cook lunch after which presents were handed out to all the children. This New Year’s event was successful as the children were happy to be a part of it. We hope to work with sponsors to bring such a great event like this in the future.

Baan Wang Jom School (E and P)

On Wednesday the 14^th of December 2016, Rejoice Charity collaborated with nurses and volunteers from Chiang Dao Hospital to host an educational event concerning STIs and HIV/Aids.

The event for 34 students, between 14 – 15 years old, was held at Baan Wang Jom Community School in Chiang Dao.

Our goal is to ensure that school children are well informed about reproductive health and have proper knowledge concerning transmission and prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV. During the meeting the class was very enthusiastic and very cooperative. 

World Aids Day 2016

December 1st. is World Aids Day.  Rejoice was invited by Chiang Dao Hospital to attend a jamboree in Arunotai (Nong Ook) a sprawling frontier town on the Burmese border.

It was held at the same school as it was 4 years ago.  We departed from Chiang Mai at 6 o’clock in the morning for the 2½ drive to the Border.  We arrived at Arunotai High School to find that stalls had already been laid out, a stage set-up and students both young and old from all parts of Chiang Mai Province, together with soldiers, border guards and local police.  Most of the children wore school uniform but some were dressed in their traditional tribal costumes.