Jeannette Wong's Project with Rejoice Charity

Jeannette Wong, the daughter of Winston Wong, the Country Manager of SDL in Thailand, organized a visit to Rejoice in Chiang Mai, for a group of 10 first and second year medical students from Srinakharinwirot University, Bangkok. The objective of the visit was to gather information concerning mother to child transmission of HIV in rural communities.

Trust and Communication

The work of Rejoice depends upon building the trust of people living with HIV. Making repeated visits to remote home and villages takes time and can be frustrating when confidentiality should be maintained, and the language of the patient is not Thai but the language of one of the many hill-tribes.
The Lahu are a close-knit, independent hill-tribe which continues to maintain many traditions and language and often communication is often difficult.

Somjit Toomkam

On Tuesday, August 29, 2017 Rejoice staff together with Daeng and Loy, volunteer HIV health care workers from Mae Ai hospital, attended the funeral of novice monk Somjit.

The abbot, Somchit Boonk, from Wat Mokcham temple lead students in a procession followed by the coffin containing the body of fellow student, Somjit Toomkam.  Novice Somjit died of lung disease, pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. (Pneumocystis pneumonia is not commonly found in the lungs of healthy people, but, being a source of opportunistic infection, it can cause a lung infection in people with a weak immune system, Wikipedia).

Each summer over the past 3 years, groups of pre-med students from Patana International School, Bangkok have visited Maekok River Village Resort activity centre.  During their visit Rejoice, together with the Resort staff and hospital staff organise visits to three hospitals in Chiang Mai Province; Chiang Dao Hospital, Chai Prakan Hospital and Mae Ai Hospital. Below is a summary of their 2017 visits;

Wat Baan Tha School

Schools in Thailand are encouraged to teach reproductive health to young children in order to prevent the ever-increasing number of unwanted pregnancies amongst adolescents and also to make them aware of how diseases are spread and how they can be prevented.

Chai Prakan is a small town close to the Myanmar border in northern Thailand.  The teachers of Wat Baan Tha school asked if Rejoice and the volunteer HIV healthcare workers from Chai Prakan Hospital (a group calling itself “Yim Soo” or Fighting (HIV) with a Smile), could make a presentation to 48 students ranging in age from 10 to 14 years on Tuesday,25th of July 2017.

Newsletters

Newsletters and updates are now made using Microsoft SWAY presentations.  They offer a better way of presenting both text and image groups together.

Here is the July 2017 Newsletter ...

On Friday 24th February 2017, Rejoice hosted the third Healthcare Exchange meeting.  This meeting was organised together with volunteers from Chai Prakan hospital and took place at Doi Wiang Pha National Park. 

The object of the meeting was to allow HIV volunteer workers from the various areas of the province to meet each other again and exchange ideas and to encourage HIV volunteers from other rural hospitals to start a group in their area. We also invited Plan International who are also assisting in our “Education and Prevention Programme” by providing videos and booklets aimed at children and youths. 

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.