Hello, my name is Lucas, I am a French volunteer for the NGO Enfants du Mékong, which translates from French as "Children of the Mékong ." I live here in the Xaverian community at Khlong Toey. I am the first volunteer from this NGO to live for one year in the Xaverian house. I was asked by Fr. Erasto to share briefly about my mission and how we work together with the Xaverian community.
First, I need to talk about my mission, and then I will try to show you why it fits with the Xaverian mission. My NGO is helping the poor and motivated children go to school. The way to do it is quite simple: we try to find a godfather or godmother in France for every child who needs one. This godparent will send every month an amount of money to help the child go to school. The main problem is that I’m French and have been in Thailand only for one year. So I don’t know which children need help. In fact, all of them need help, but sadly, we can’t help everyone. Fr. Edgar is my eye on the field. Since I can’t know every child in the slum area, I can’t decide who is willing to go to school or who doesn’t care about school. I have to rely on him. So this is how it works: he said to me, « I know a kid living with his grandmother who can’t work; they have no money, but the child loves school; he needs support.» Then I go to visit him, put a lot of data in the database, and then, as fast as possible, we try to find a sponsor. Once we find a sponsor, the Xaverian community will receive money from my NGO, and they will use this money to help the children in their everyday lives.
Why are we working with this community? First, because we share the same point of view about education. We all think that school is very important for children, helping them to get out of the slum area. Secondly, because the Xaverians are already doing my job, they know so many children in the slum area, they are already helping them by paying their school fees and other things. My NGO is here to support them in their mission. And finally, because beyond money, Enfants du Mékong is trying to help the Xaverian community. I am living in their house, so I cook when it’s my turn to cook. Other exemple sometimes the father order milk to give to the community so 500 boxes of milk arrive at 4am, guess who is here to help ?
Enfants du Mékong also has a program to teach the kids out of school. By playing games and finding partners, we also try to help the children as much as possible. What it means is that beyond school, we also try to teach them to be good human beings. Once again, the priests do the same with the Saturday activities. So my job is to try to find new ways to make the children improve. Often, they already have the solution, and I’m just here to apply what they already do so well.
I hope my recapped article makes you understand that both my NGO and the Xaverian community have made a bet for the future. By helping the children, we think that they will be able to change the world, or at least, their world. This work is long and hard; so every help is welcome.
