Siam Care Family Camp

Siam-Care believes that children, our most defenseless demographic, are often affected most for reasons in which they were uninvolved. Parents who suffered from HIV/AIDS often leave children orphaned, many of who carry the disease themselves. Grandparents, who should be receiving their own care, struggle to raise children of a completely different generation. And even if the parents are still living and healthy enough to care for their children, the financial, emotional, and social weight of HIV/AIDS is often too overwhelming.

I have been sponsoring children through Siam Care since 2002 and would like to take this opportunity to sponsor the annual family camp to extend care and enrich the families' experiences as much as possible.

PROJECTS
CHILD AND FAMILY SPONSORSHIP
HOMECARE

Siam-Care believes the heart and strength of its efforts lie in homecare. This project began as a long-term support system for families and children. Siam-Care enables HIV-affected and disadvantaged families, as well as the broader community to reside in accepting and risk free environments.

Siam-Care provides the following services in its holistic homecare approach:

Essential items and goods such as: clothing, nutritious food, and household necessities
Emotional support in the form of friendship, counseling, advocacy, and educator
Job training and skills
Peer support through camps and focus group meetings
Community and family intervention
Start-up loans and financial assistance
Medication, nutritional supplements, and ARV management
HIV/AIDS education through focus groups, community activities, and school partnerships
Through prayer, Bible study, and encouragement, Siam-Care offers peace and hope

Donate to Siam-Cares family homecare.
Siam-Care believes the heart and strength of its efforts lie in homecare. This project began as a long-term support system for families and children. Siam-Care enables HIV-affected and disadvantaged families, as well as the broader community to reside in accepting and risk free environments.

If it wasn?t for Siam-Care I would probably be in there as
well, or somewhere sniffing glue, using drugs.
But now I have a goal in life and don?t want to be like
my friends. - Tam

From a sponsor child after visiting his friend in the police cell.

PRISON OUTREACH

The Thai prison system fosters despairing circumstances and remains a vulnerable place for HIV/AIDS transmission. Siam-Care received authorization in 2007 to dedicate a team twice a month to Bangkok?s prison hospital. Both the male and female wards are visited, allowing Siam-Care the opportunity to:

Befriend HIV-positive patients
Offer counseling, encouragement, and advice
Rebuild or strengthen contact between inmates and their family members
Conduct HIV/AIDS awareness sessions for all patients
Assimilate patients who are released back into society
Provide homecare support to prisoners families

Through its prison outreach, Siam-Care offers hope and love to some of Thailands most injured and lonely souls.

WOMENS CRAFT GROUP
Siam-Care provides women with no other means of employment the opportunity to earn a living. Women undergo training to make and sell handmade crafts throughout Thailand. Siam-Care purchases the crafts and jewelry to sell at events, fairs, and shops.

The handicraft program is central to Siam-Care?s philosophy of helping adults living with HIV/AIDS become financial self-reliant. This is also a way to encourage mental and emotional stability for those struggling to secure an active role in the community. The women participating in the craft group are able to work from home, and can support other women who face similar difficulties.

Please contact us if you are interested in buying or selling crafts: siamcare@siamcare.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

WORKSHOPS AND TRAINING
Education is Siam-Care?s strongest defense against the stigmas and fears associated with HIV/AIDS. Raising awareness and understanding of the virus and those affected by it will ultimately equip individuals to make informed decisions and steer clear of segregation. Siam-Care has committed to reaching youth, families, communities, schools, and churches through the following methods:

Materials and Teacher Training

Siam-Care has developed and translated a multitude of materials for teachers to incorporate in the classroom. Siam-Care also invests in the training of teachers in the northeast provinces, surrounding areas, and Laos.

?A 16-part sex education and life skills curriculum for high school students.
?A 12-part curriculum for primary school students based on Siam-Care?s book, ?There?s a Dragon in Brenda?s Blood?.
?Numerous translations of the ?Good Boy? and ?Good Daughter? teaching series on child protection, and ?AIDS and You?.

Youth Work
Siam-Care organizes camps and events to train youth in leadership and peer counseling, HIV/AIDS awareness, child protection, and life-skills. Participants of these activities are able to reach and organize families, friends, and communities that Siam-Care staff cannot.

Community Education

Siam-Care regularly holds sessions on HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive health, life-skills, and child protection within the communities of its cases. District leaders are also invited to participate in leadership training opportunities, and share their newfound insight with community members through organized activities.

Church Outreach

Siam-Care works with local churches involved in the Siam-Care project areas. Church leaders undergo training on HIV/AIDS, sexual education, and child protection. It is critical for the church to define its role in helping the poverty stricken and HIV/AIDS affected families and individuals in its reach. Church members are also encouraged to take part in Siam-Care?s outreach and remember the children and families in prayer.

HIV/AIDS IN THAILAND

It was not until 1984 that the first HIV/AIDS case was reported in Thailand. Previous instances were predominantly restricted to sex workers, homosexuals, drug users, and tourists, but from 1988 to 1989 HIV/AIDS began saturating an entire country. From the infected commercial sex workers and drug users, HIV/AIDS spread through the general public, affecting husbands, wives, and unborn children.

Anand Panyarachun took power in 1991 as Thailand?s Prime Minister. Among other programs aimed at fighting HIV/AIDS, Panyarachun launched a 100 percent condom initiative that provided brothels with free condoms and required client usage. Government spending for HIV/AIDS jumped from $180,000 to $44 million, and the National AIDS Program received a substantial increase in funding through 1996. At the peak of the government?s AIDS-prevention campaign, major steps were taken to raise awareness within all sects of the population.
A financial crisis in the late 90s triggered retractions in funding, with effects still hindering external support today. Much of the world perceives Thailand as a developed country and therefore offers little assistance to some of the neediest people in the world. Because the Thai government produces generic drugs, antiretroviral drugs have been offered free since 2003 to all Thai citizens. This has dramatically improved the quality of life for people living with HIV/AIDS, but Siam-Care is dedicated to initial prevention.

Home care
Testimonies

?Praise God that a simple conversation like that can so cheer a person up. Your amiable nature and the 10,000 watt smiles make it easy to do this. My HIV friends have the same feeling of affection and admiration for you and the team. Sometimes to a prisoner or a sick person, a few words of care and encouragement could be the difference between him/her giving up or fighting on.? - Michael

From a letter received after visiting in Klong Prem prison hospital:
The Thai prison system fosters despairing circumstances and long sentences while it remains a vulnerable place for HIV/AIDS transmission. Siam-Care received authorization in 2007 to dedicate a team to Bangkok?s prison hospital. Both the male and female wards are visited 3 times a month. Once a month the team also goes to one of main female prisons and spends the day there. These visits allow Siam-Care the opportunity to:
? Befriend HIV-positive patients
? Offer counseling, encouragement, and advice
? Rebuild or strengthen contact between inmates and their family members
? Conduct HIV/AIDS awareness sessions for all patients
? Assimilate patients who are released back into society
? Provide home-care support to prisoners? families

Through its prison outreach, Siam-Care offers hope and love to some of Thailand?s most injured and lonely souls.

Women?s craft group
Testimonies

If it wasn?t for Siam-Care I would probably be in
there as well, or somewhere sniffing glue, using drugs.
But now I have a goal in life and don?t want to be
like my friends. - Tam

Women's Craft Group

Siam-Care provides women with no other means of employment the opportunity to earn a living. Women undergo training to make and sell handmade crafts throughout Thailand. Siam-Care purchases the crafts and jewelry to sell at events, fairs, and shops.

The handicraft program is central to Siam-Care?s philosophy of helping adults living with HIV/AIDS become financial self-reliant. This is also a way to encourage mental and emotional stability for those struggling to secure an active role in the community. The women participating in the craft group are able to work from home, and can support other women who face similar difficulties.

Please contact Siam Care if you are interested in buying or selling crafts: siamcare@siamcare.org

Workshops and training
Testimonies

?We just feel as if seeing San with his wife and child is a fantastic vindication of the work Siam-Care is involved in. It just shows how investing in the life of a young person from a difficult background has real positive fruit, not just for his generation, but for those that follow. Anyone seeing San with his family, taking his responsibilities as seriously as he does, proves that love shared through financial and practical means, works.? ? Alan and Audrey

Education is Siam-Care?s strongest defense against the stigmas and fears associated with HIV/AIDS. Raising awareness and understanding of the virus and those affected by it will ultimately equip individuals to make informed decisions and steer clear of segregation.
More recently Siam-Care has become involved in the fight again human trafficking through educating vulnerable groups in the northeast and in Laos, Savannakhet city which is situated opposite Mukdahan city at the other side of the Mekong river, of its traps.
Siam-Care has committed to reaching youth, families, communities, schools, and churches through the following methods:

Materials and Teacher Training
Siam-Care has developed and translated a multitude of materials for teachers to incorporate in the classroom. Siam-Care also invests in the training of teachers in the northeast provinces, surrounding areas, and Laos.
? A 16-part sex education and life skills curriculum for high school students.
? A 12-part curriculum for primary school students based on Siam-Care?s book, ?There?s a Dragon in Brenda?s Blood?.
? Numerous translations of the ?Good Boy? and ?Good Daughter? teaching series on child protection.
? ?AIDS and You? by Patric Dixon from ACET, translated into Thai.

Youth Work
Siam-Care organizes camps and events to train youth in leadership and peer counseling, HIV/AIDS awareness, child protection, human trafficking issues and life-skills. Participants of these activities are able to reach and organize families, friends, and communities that Siam-Care staff cannot.

Community Education
Siam-Care regularly holds sessions on HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive health, life-skills, child protection and human trafficking issues within the communities of its cases. District leaders are also invited to participate in leadership training opportunities, and share their newfound insight with community members through organized activities.

Church Outreach
Siam-Care works with local churches involved in the Siam-Care project areas. Church leaders undergo training on HIV/AIDS, sexual education, child protection and human trafficking issues. It is critical for the church to define its role in helping the poverty stricken and HIV/AIDS affected families and individuals in its reach. Church members are also encouraged to take part in Siam-Care?s outreach and remember the children and families in prayer.

HIV/AIDs in Thailand
Testimonies

?Praise God that a simple conversation like that can so cheer a person up. Your amiable nature and the 10,000 watt smiles make it easy to do this. My HIV friends have the same feeling of affection and admiration for you and the team. Sometimes to a prisoner or a sick person, a few words of care and encouragement could be the difference between him/her giving up or fighting on.? - Michael

It was not until 1984 that the first HIV/AIDS case was reported in Thailand. Previous instances were predominantly restricted to sex workers, homosexuals, drug users, and tourists, but from 1988 to 1989 HIV/AIDS began saturating an entire country. From the infected commercial sex workers and drug users, HIV/AIDS spread through the general public, affecting husbands, wives, and unborn children.

Anand Panyarachun took power in 1991 as Thailand?s Prime Minister. Among other programs aimed at fighting HIV/AIDS, Panyarachun launched a 100 percent condom initiative that provided brothels with free condoms and required client usage. Government spending for HIV/AIDS jumped from $180,000 to $44 million, and the National AIDS Program received a substantial increase in funding through 1996. At the peak of the government?s AIDS-prevention campaign, major steps were taken to raise awareness within all sects of the population.
A financial crisis in the late 90s triggered retractions in funding, with effects still hindering external support today. Much of the world perceives Thailand as a developed country and therefore offers little assistance to some of the neediest people in the world. Because the Thai government produces generic drugs, antiretroviral drugs have been offered free since 2003 to all Thai citizens. This has dramatically improved the quality of life for people living with HIV/AIDS, but Siam-Care is dedicated to initial prevention.

Testimonies
?We just feel as if seeing San with his wife and child is a fantastic vindication of the work Siam-Care is involved in. It just shows how investing in the life of a young person from a difficult background has real positive fruit, not just for his generation, but for those that follow. Anyone seeing San with his family, taking his responsibilities as seriously as he does, proves that love shared through financial and practical means, works.? ? Alan and Audrey