UniBreak Thailand volunteers work on refugee safe house

It has now been almost a week since I started my placement as a development volunteer in Sangkhlaburi, Thailand. So much has happened that it’s hard to describe the whirlwind of experiences I’m having right now, but I’ll give it a go. I am with two other development volunteers, Anita and Bree, and we are helping a local contractor to build a path and several drains at the Safe House rehabilitation home in Huay Malai, which is a small town 20 mins from the town of Sangkhlaburi and very close to the border with Burma (Myanmar).
The residents at the Safe House are Burmese refugees with a variety of mental health, emotional and physical problems. They are also members of ethnic minorities such as the Karen and Mon, which are persecuted by the Burmese military.

So far, the work has mostly involved hard labour like mixing concrete and digging out drains. I won’t lie: it’s been pretty hard, especially for someone like me who is only 156cm tall and 50 kilos! In Australia, I’m a law student, which is a lot of mental work, but at least you can sit at a desk with a coffee while you do it! But for all the sore muscles and complaining I’ve been doing, it’s been so rewarding to see the improvements slowly take shape. We are building a path to make it easier for patients with physical disabilities, and for staff to respond to emergencies more quickly. When I first started, I couldn’t have imagined how rewarding it would be to see people use a path that we helped to lay. Today, a patient with a deformed foot walked from his bed in the male quarters down to the main house. A trip that used to be quite dangerous and set over broken ground now takes him half the time and is a lot safer. I’m really proud that I could help make that happen.

We are in Sangkhlaburi with six ‘medical’ volunteers, who are also at the Safe House with us. While their daily schedule is different to ours, on weekends we are planning to travel together. So far we have an elephant trek and the King’s Birthday celebrations planned for tomorrow. The Elephant Trek is pretty self-explanatory, but the King’s Birthday is one of the most important holidays in Thailand, where the King is revered by almost everyone. At the moment, royal yellow and Thai national flags are everywhere on the streets, and the King and Queen’s portraits are set up outside nearly every government building and at major intersections. It will be interesting to see what celebrations they have planned for an ethnically diverse town such as Sangkhla.

Other than that, the only thing I will mention is the food, and how delicious it is! I definitely loved my Thai food in Australia, so it’s been a special treat getting to eat it for every meal, but there are also pretty good Western meals here because Sangkhlaburi is a major destination for volunteers from developed countries. I’m happy eating my way through everything Thai that’s on offer, but some of the other volunteers are pretty well-obsessed with the vegetarian bakery, which does awesome breakfast bagels. We definitely need to keep our energy up to get the path finished!

Until next time, Lauren