Twenty six young toddlers recently attended their graduation ceremony at Father Ray Day Care Center. They are now old enough to enter kindergarten classes at their local school and not only did they receive their graduation certificates, they were also presented with gifts and an envelope containing cash.

Each morning around fifty young children arrive at the Day Care Center. First thing they do is have breakfast as there are many families who will have no food at home.

They after singing the national anthem and raising the flag of Thailand they spend the day learning, mostly through play.

Apart from breakfast the Center also provides lunch, and the cook also makes sure the kids get a big dose of healthy vitamin C as she squeezes the oranges herself.

All this costs just twenty baht each day, and a percentage of that twenty baht is saved and presented back to the children at the graduation ceremony.

The children all arrived at the graduation ceremony in their new school uniforms. Buying shirts or blouses, skirts and shorts, socks, underwear, shoes and a sports kit, any parent will agree can become quite expensive. The money they receive back, that small percentage of all the twenty baht, covers the cost of the uniforms, meaning the parents are not struggling to find money they don’t really have.

In May 2017 Alcazar Theater was the venue for one of the most remarkable theater performances Pattaya has ever seen.

Performing art students from Brigham Young University in the United States took the audience on a journey around the world through dance. There were traditional dance performances from countries in Eastern Europe and to Mexico, Ireland to Spain and also to Bollywood and Broadway.

This year eight performers from BYU arrived in Pattaya on their grand tour of China and South East Asia. The eight members of the acapella singing group, Vocal Point, performed for four hundred children and students at the Father Ray Foundation, using no instruments, though one member of the group was one of the most talented beat boxers the children have ever heard.

They sang many songs which saw the kids on their feet and dancing along to the music. Michael Jackson’s Thriller, September by Earth Wind & Fire and the Theme from Jaws were just three of the numbers they performed, and the reaction they received from the audience was, in their opinion, the best they have received so far on their tour.

Once the show was finished there was a rush to the stage for photographs, selfies and autographs; the singers spent more time posing for photos and signing their name than they did singing. But it was a great show, one the children loved.

When Father Ray Brennan, founder of several projects for the underprivileged here in Pattaya, passed away in 2003, many said that the work he started would not continue without him. Some said that without Father Ray there could be no Father Ray Foundation.

But in 2003 the Foundation was taking care of and educating several hundred children and students, they would still need a home, a safe place to live and an education.

Most of the success of the Foundation which continued after the passing of Father Ray was down to Brother Denis Gervais, who, following his retirement from IBM, spent twenty five years devising, designing, training and putting into operation systems that that improved the way the accounting, purchasing and administration departments worked.

When Brother Denis passed away in June 2018 he left an organization that today cares for and educates 850 underprivileged children and students with disabilities and could rival a similar organization in the West for the way it is run and managed.

On the morning of Sunday 9th June, on what would have been his 74th birthday, a memorial mass to commemorate the first anniversary of his death was held at the small chapel that Father Ray had built in the 1980’s on the grounds of the Father Ray Foundation.

The children sang as loud as they could and remembered ‘Brudder’, as they called him, before walking 450 meters up to St. Nikolaus Church where they laid flowers on his grave, said a prayer and sang a few more songs.

Students from eight Pattaya-area schools learned how to better protect the environment during a camp at Banglamung School.

About 100 youths took part in the workshop that closed June 9.

A major focus of the course was air pollution, following this year’s crisis over tiny particulate matter produced by vehicle engines, factories and burning of farm fields.

The hope was students would become more aware of problems relating to the environment and natural resources by studying the ecosystems in Banglamung District.

We all know that going to school/college is where we build the foundation which helps to determine where we are going for the rest of our lives. Success at school is helped if the student is happy being a student and that depends on the facilities and friends that we make. When you look at the schools in Pattaya and, having visited most of them, you come away impressed with the excellent facilities that the students enjoy. Good sporting facilities, sports equipment, computers and good surroundings all to help the students in their studies.

But venture a little further away from the centre and the facilities are not in the same league, Wat Weruwanaram School is but one example. A school that is in need of financial help to develop the old facilities for much of the original school has been demolished. There are very few areas for the children to play but, worst of all, the children aged between 4 and 12 years, had no drinking water for this had to be purchased from the local supermarket which leaves less funds for the purchase of text books and other items.

That is where The Growling Swan comes in. Clean drinking water is now available provided by a high tech system which includes UV technology and we even obtained a cooling system which was also attached. Donations made by Peter and his members have reach 484,000 baht, which is an amazing achievement for such a small group of people making donations of just a few baht imposed when something untoward happens on and around a golf course. Most donations have involved providing funds to install water filtration systems which are a major benefit, not only to the students, but to their families who can fill a bottle with water thereby making buying water less of a burden.

Just to complete the programme at this particular school, a net was provided to help the children play a number of sports like badminton, volley ball or perhaps takraw.

The director, Suttatin, teachers and children on hand for the handover on Thursday, May 30, and to welcome William, Liab and representatives from the YWCA. Peter Grey, feeling a little unwell, was unable to attend in person but he will take a keen interest in the events.

Well done everybody at The Growling Swan.

Five migrant children under care of Pattaya’s ASEAN Education Center placed in the top five in the Sudoku competition at the Maxploys Central and Eastern Championships in Sriracha June 15.

Jariya Ron won first place in the secondary-school level after winning second in the same competition last year.

Leeda Liem and Pew Nerb both were runners-up in the primary-school level while “Sakorn” placed third and “Sonia” fourth.

Sudoku is a logic-based, number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits in such a way that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 grids that make up the larger 9×9 grid contains all of the digits from 1 to 9. Each puzzle begins partially filled in.

There was a lot of travelling between schools last week when Year 6 students from Regents School visited the School for the Blind, and students from the Father Ray Foundation made the journey to Regents.

Over three mornings, twenty Year 6 students arrived at the School for the Blind in Naklua for a morning of new experiences.

They walked around the school, met students in their classrooms and watched as they did their lessons. The same lessons as they do at Regents, but done a little differently in Naklua.

The visitors were taught the correct way to guide a blind person, before donning a blindfold and having their friends guide them around the school; you need to have a friend you can trust.

They also learned how to use a white cane, a tool that is recognized the world over, and while the Regents students may never need to use one they experienced what it was like to try and get from one place to another without seeing where they were going.

Writing Braille was another skill they learned, with their eyes open, but reading all the little bumps on a piece of paper will take much longer to learn.

The children from the Father Ray School for Children with Special Needs spent a day at Regents in the music and drama department, and they loved it. They liked it so much that some asked if they could go again, every day! They danced, they sang and played instruments, a full day of fun.

The toddlers from the Father Ray Day Care Center are regular visitors to Regents and it is good to see all the children learn and play together. Local Thai children make new farang friends, and Regents has such a wonderful play room that it is often difficult getting the children to leave.

On the final day of the week the blind students arrived at Regents where they were met by the Year 6 students where, using their new skills, they showed off their school and also explained the planned arts and craft activities. Making play-doh, weaving and making collages were some of the new activities the blind students were introduced to.

Watching the sighted and the blind children together, the children with special needs and those without, the poor and the better off makes one realize that no matter where we come from, what we may or may not have, or what our ability or disability is, we are all the same and children never see the differences.

Nearly 2,000 Pattaya youths competed in fine arts, sports and science as the city’s Education Department showcased the academic work of its students and teachers.

Deputy Mayor Banlue Kullavanijaya opened the June 17-21 academic exhibition at Pattaya School No. 7 for 2,048 students and teachers from Pattaya City and Banglamung schools.

Students performed musical and dance performances, demonstrated sports prowess and showed up original inventions in the event aimed at bolstering the abilities of both students and teachers.

In addition to the 49 student competitions, teachers got an opportunity to network and learn from others. (PCPR)

If you want your child to have a rich and fulfilling life, one of the best things you can do is help build your child’s vocabulary. Research shows strong language ability is associated with a number of positive things, including happiness, friendships, connections with family, academic success and a satisfying career.

Building your child’s language ability is not something you should wait to do until they’re old enough to go to school. Vocabulary development is extremely rapid. Between birth and second grade, children, on average, learn about 5,200 root words.

The ability to quickly interpret words at 18 months can determine the size of a child’s vocabulary later in childhood.

By grades three and four, vocabulary also is closely related to children’s ability to understand what they read. This is partly because a child’s vocabulary is a strong indicator of a child’s knowledge of the world.

As one who researches the best ways to develop children’s literacy, here are seven things that I believe parents and educators can do to help build children’s language and vocabulary skills.

1. Talk about objects and events that interest the child

Talk about something that has the child’s attention. A mother may notice her 8-month-old baby staring at a large cat and say, “Oh look at the nice kitty. She has such pretty eyes and soft fur.” Such interactions may also occur when a child points to something and starts trying to talk about it, indicating excited interest.

These exchanges are prime opportunities for adults to name, describe and explain things. Occasions when parents and children talk about things they are both attending to are powerful instructional moments. Words are paired with objects, events and emotions. The importance of these exchanges is shown by the fact that the amount of pointing by children at 18 months is related to language development at 42 months.

2. Have many conversations with children

The amount of language children hear during conversations with adults in the first 18 to 24 months of life matters. Language areas of the child’s brain are rapidly developing. The ability to translate sounds into meaningful words is rapidly improving. Linking sounds to meanings quickly enables one to continue to make sense from the words they are hearing. The speed with which children assign meaning to words is strongly related to the amount of language they have heard as part of adult-child conversations.

3. Engage in sustained interactions

By the time children are 2, it is not only the quantity but also the quality of the conversations they hear that matters. At this point to really foster your child’s language growth, don’t be in a hurry – talk with your child about particular objects or events for a decent amount of time. It’s not necessarily a certain amount of time that matters. But there should be at least eight to 10 back-and-forth exchanges between the parent and the child. When children are verbal, these back-and-forth exchanges that take place over many turns are especially valuable.

Indeed, preschool children who have longer-lasting conversations show faster brain development and more efficient processing of information than those who have fewer and shorter conversations.

4. Read and discuss books

One of the most powerful of all shared activities is book reading. Books can be shared and enjoyed from the first year of life. They provide endless opportunities to name objects, animals and action. These experiences can be repeated over and over. The activity also gives parents a time to bond with their child while talking about favorite pictures, events and stories.

5. Use varied words while expanding world knowledge

Children acquire knowledge rapidly as they learn words that refer to more complex concepts. As time goes on, these words will be used during conversations about new ideas and experiences. For example, during a trip to an aquarium a child might see fascinating creatures as their parent names the animal, talks about parts of its body – its fins and tail, for instance – and how it moves. Or, during a trip to the grocery store, one can name objects, discuss their attributes, talk about where they come from and much more.

6. Talk about past events

Through language we are able to travel through time to past and future events. As parents talk with children about experiences from the past, they tend to use novel words and children, in turn, are encouraged to use them. For example, a parent may say, “Do you remember when we went to the aquarium? The child responds: “Yes, we saw that big big fish with wings.” To which the parent replies: “Yes that was an enormous stingray.” Regular conversations about the past foster vocabulary learning.

7. Engage in pretend play

Language enables children to construct and live in imaginary worlds. The talk that occurs as they enact their roles in these imaginary worlds leads them to expand their vocabulary.

For example, two children are playing with action figures that represent doctors. One child holds a doctor figure and the other is playing with one that is lying on the ground. The doctor says, “Be quiet I need to use my stethoscope.” The “injured” figure says, “OK. Is that the thing you use to hear my heart?” Here we see one child informally teaching a sophisticated word. The second child is learning what a stethoscope is and, as they play, will gain some understanding of how it is used.

These evidence-based methods are just a few ways that parents can help build their children’s vocabulary and knowledge of the world.

The president of the Human Help Network Thailand said the development of the Eastern Economic Corridor will create better job opportunities for children, but educating those kids is key.

Sorasit Sunthornked, a financial inspector with the government’s EEC Investment Project and a former deputy governor at the Bank of Thailand, said June 22 that he long has been concerned about the situation facing children in Thailand.

Kids today face more family problems, teenage pregnancy is on the rise and the cost of living continues to increase, he said.

The Human Help Network has tried to help by providing scholarships to educate at-risk children, but it is only a small organization and he does what he can, Sorasit said.

“At least, we can help some children to be able to enter the educational system and get better care to propel our society to develop and grow,” he said. “However, we are a small organization that cannot help all children. We would like companies and public organizations to be more concerned about education promotion.”

The EEC – which aims to make Chonburi and other eastern provinces a hub for logistics and manufacturing, can create good opportunities for children to learn various languages and work in EEC counties, Sorasit said.

There will be more jobs in large factories and companies if kids are properly educated, he added.

Students of Photisampan Pittayakarn School paid respect to their instructors on Teachers Day.
Principal Somsak Duangcharoen presided over the June 27 event organized to let students show appreciation for their teachers’ kindness and dedication.

Youths lit candles and incense before paying respect to a Buddha statue and a portrait of HM the King.

Then, secondary and high school students performed the traditional Teacher’s Day activities, including chanting, a blessing dance, choir singing and a pledge of dedication. Then
Afterward, students from each class presented teachers with flowers.

The Human Help Network continued its efforts to teach kids to protect themselves through a fun card game at Rachpradithwittaya School.

Pirun Noyimjai, manager of HHN’s Drop-In Center, and his team visited the school June 27 to show videos and cartoons and play the foundation’s Child Protection Card Game funded in part by the Social Development and Human Security Ministry.

The video covered children’s rights and how some in society would try to entice children with sweets and presents into dangerous circumstances. A subsequent cartoon covered sexual abuse by family members.

Then it was time for the game, with kids sequencing cards about children’s rights into four stacks and sorting cards with safe and unsafe words.

HHN is visiting schools across Chonburi to teach children self-protection and survival skills.

The Father Ray School for Children with Special Needs is located on the same site as the Redemptorist Technological College for People with Disabilities, and both recently decided to hold their annual sports day on the same day.

Both the school and the college had elaborate parades, with students carrying portraits of His Majesty the King, and younger students carrying the trophies.

It could have ended in disaster within the first five minutes as the special needs athletes paraded a bit too close to where a wheelchair race was taking place.

Catastrophe was averted and it was a wonderful day, and the noise was deafening, but the events showed some students had considerable sporting talent.

The flame to open the games at the special needs school was carried by a young man who not only attends the school but has lived at the Father Ray Children’s Home for eleven years and is a member of the Thailand Special Olympics futsal team.

As usual there were many races, but the college students compete according to their disability. A student with one leg cannot compete against someone who is missing an upper limb, who in turn cannot compete against a wheelchair racer, so they all have their own race.

They also compete in field events, which is twice as hard for anyone with a disability. There is no run up to throw the javelin if you are in a wheelchair, no chance to spin to throw a shot or a discus if you only have one leg.

The blue team were winners at the college, and the yellow team came last but they looked happier, and at the special needs school there was a winning team but everyone was making so much noise cheering that they were all declared winners.

More information can be found at www.fr-ray.org or email info@fr-ray.org

Satit Udomseuksa School is delighted to announce the winners of the schools 20th Anniversary Academic Excellence Scholarships. On Thursday 20th June 2019 we revealed the five talented honour roll students who were awarded the special scholarships that commemorate Satit Udomseuksa School’s 20th Anniversary. The winners all excel in academic achievements and leadership, are dedicated to the community, and participate in numerous extracurricular activities.

The school founder, Somphun Pettrakul, awarded 2 academic scholarships for two students’ free education for the entire year. Additionally, this year students were given an opportunity to apply for the ‘20th Anniversary Switzerland Scholarship’ to win an all-inclusive 2-week educational trip to Switzerland. They will be attending one of the top boarding schools, Hochalpines Institut Ftan. This school was founded in 1793, it’s situated high above the clouds at 1700 metres in the Engadine Valley, Switzerland.

The lucky winners are: Mast. Max Immonen M6 (Full academic scholarship), Miss Phatcharaporn Salarad M4 (Full academic scholarship), Miss Pannika Salarad M5 (Switzerland scholarship), Miss Jessica Vaehae-Ruohola P6 (Switzerland scholarship), and Miss Claudia Nazarov P6 (Switzerland scholarship).

Pattaya School No. 4 marked its 81st anniversary with nine monks performing religious ceremonies.

Vice Principal Ichaya Ola welcomed Deputy Mayor Manote Nongyai to the July 1 event.

Nine monks from Wat Nongyai, led by Abbot Samutyongyuth Kemataro, blessed the school and recited prayers. School officials and guests then made merit by offering the monks lunch.

School No. 4 is located in Naklua and was called Prachaban Nongprue 4 School on its establishment on July 1, 1938, opening with just six students who studied in Nongyai Temple’s sermon hall.

It now teaches hundreds of students from kindergarten to ninth grade.

Chicago (AP) — Preschoolers on government food aid have grown a little less pudgy, a U.S. study found, offering fresh evidence that previous signs of declining obesity rates weren’t a fluke.

Obesity rates dropped steadily to about 14% in 2016 — the latest data available — from 16% in 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

“It gives us more hope that this is a real change,” said Heidi Blanck, who heads obesity prevention at the CDC.

The results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The improvement affected youngsters ages 2 through 4 who receive food vouchers and other services in the federal Women, Infants and Children nutrition program. About 1 in 5 U.S. kids that age were enrolled in 2016.

An earlier report involving program participants the same age found at least small declines in obesity in 18 states between 2008 and 2011. That was the first decline after years of increases that later plateaued, and researchers weren’t sure if it was just a blip.

Improvements in food options in that program including adding more fruits, vegetables and whole grains may have contributed to the back-to-back obesity declines, researchers said. Other data show obesity rates in 2016 were stable but similar, about 14 percent, for children aged 2 to 5 who were not enrolled in the program, Blanck noted.

While too many U.S. children are still too heavy, the findings should be celebrated, said Dr. William Dietz, a former CDC obesity expert. “The changes are meaningful and substantial.”

Dietz said program changes that cut the amount of juice allowed and switched from high-fat to low-fat milk likely had the biggest impact. He estimated that amounted to an average of 9,000 fewer monthly calories per child.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends low-fat milk for children. It also suggests kids should limit juice intake and choose fresh fruits instead.

Further reducing U.S. childhood obesity will require broader changes — such as encouraging families and day care centers to routinely serve fruits, vegetables and whole grains; and employers to extend parental leave to make breastfeeding easier for new mothers, said Maureen Black, a child development and nutrition specialist at the University of Maryland.

Studies have shown breastfed infants are less likely than others to become obese later on.

New York (AP) — Under financial pressure from sex-abuse litigation, the Boy Scouts of America are seeking to bolster their abuse-prevention efforts with a new awareness program featuring cartoon-style videos that will be provided to more than 1.2 million Cub Scouts across the nation.

Targeted at children from kindergarten to sixth grade, the series of six videos aims to teach children how to recognize potentially abusive behavior and what to do if confronted by it.

The initiative, announced Thursday, comes as the Boy Scouts face a potentially huge wave of abuse-related lawsuits after several states enacted laws this year making it easier for victims of long-ago abuse to file claims. The Boy Scouts acknowledge that the litigation poses a financial threat and have not ruled out seeking bankruptcy protection.

The bulk of the newly surfacing abuse cases date to the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s; the BSA says there were only five known abuse victims in 2018 out of 2.2 million youth members. The BSA credits the change to an array of prevention policies adopted since the mid-1980s, including mandatory criminal background checks and abuse-prevention training for all staff and volunteers, and a rule that two or more adult leaders be present with youth at all times during scouting activities.

The Boy Scouts’ youth protection director, former police investigator Mike Johnson, decided to add the videos to the prevention program after vetting them with parents of Cub Scout-age children and with children themselves.

“Parents told me they’re having these conversations with their kids, and they felt the videos would help them have a better, richer conversation,” Johnson said. “The kids are engaged. … There’s some heavy topics discussed in a child-specific way.”

Previous BSA prevention videos featured real people, not animated characters.

“The power and magic of animation, and its ability to communicate with kids — I underestimated it,” Johnson said.

The videos and related learning materials were developed in 2015-16 by psychologists and other experts recruited by the Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center, a nonprofit in Rancho Mirage, California, that specializes in helping children affected by abuse.

Jon Conte, a University of Washington professor emeritus who helped develop the videos, summarized their purpose this way: “Providing children with the knowledge and skills to identify risk situations and to avoid, escape or disclose abuse before it happens or after it happens once.”

The videos target two age groups: kindergarten through third grade and fourth through sixth grade. Each series features a boy and girl who talk about experiencing abusive situations — for example, with a neighbor or coach — and explain how they used a set of “Protect Yourself Rules” to avoid harm.

One of the rules, in case of abuse: “Shout, run, tell.” Another rule is “Safe touch, unsafe touch” — being wary of anyone touching the child on a part of the body that their bathing suit would cover.

“Unsafe touches are scary and confusing, because they can seem playful or gentle,” says a character in the video for kindergarteners.

The videos for older children extend beyond sex abuse, addressing bullying, domestic violence and online dangers.

The accompanying lesson materials will be required for all Cub Scout units. For example, second-graders at the rank of Wolf would be asked to identify five trusted adults to whom they could report an abuse incident. They’d also be asked to demonstrate how they would say “No” to someone making them uncomfortable.

John Thoresen, the Sinatra Center’s chief executive, said the videos are used in many schools in the U.S. and abroad, and have been viewed by more than 100 million children since 2017.

Thoresen said the videos’ boy and girl characters are a good fit for the Cub Scouts, which last year ended a boys-only policy and now have about 78,000 girls in the ranks.

Within the next year, the Sinatra Center plans to complete animated anti-abuse videos for older youths. Johnson said the Boy Scouts might be interested in using them for its program serving boys and girls aged 11-17.

The BSA’s current youth participation of 2.2 million is down from more than 4 million in peak years of the past.

In many ways, the BSA’s challenges related to sex abuse parallel those facing the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. Both institutions boast of major progress over the past 20 or 30 years in combatting sex abuse — whether by priests or scout leaders — but both face numerous lawsuits alleging negligence and cover-ups, mostly in prior years.

Founded in 1910, the BSA has kept confidential files since the 1920s listing staff and volunteers implicated in sexual abuse, for the avowed purpose of keeping predators away from youth. According to a court deposition, the files as of January listed 7,819 suspected abusers and 12,254 victims.

Until late May, the BSA had insisted it never knowingly allowed a predator to work with youth.

On May 27, The Associated Press reported that attorneys for abuse survivors had identified multiple cases in which known predators were allowed to return to posts as unit leaders. The next day, BSA chief executive Mike Surbaugh wrote to a U.S. House committee, acknowledging that the group’s previous claim was untrue.

“I have reviewed information that now makes clear to me that decades ago BSA did, in at least some instances, allow individuals to return to Scouting even after credible accusations of sexual abuse,” Surbaugh wrote. “I am devastated that this ever occurred.”

The Grande Centre Point donated daily necessities to the Human Help Network Foundation Thailand’s shelters.

General Manager Pravee Wienravee led her team to the Drop-In Center July 8, bringing along detergent, tissues, cleaning and gardening tools, snacks and dried food for the kids at the daycare center and ASEAN Education Center.

Drop-In Center Manager Pirun Noyimjai thanked the hotel staffers, who played some games with the children before departing.

Photisampan Pittayakarn School celebrated its 59th anniversary in Naklua.

Former Pattaya Mayor Niran Wattanasartsathorn and Pairoj Prawatlert-Udom, chairman of the local Basic Education Commission office, participated in the July 10 festivities for the school started on the grounds of Photisampan Temple.

Candles and incense were lit to pay homage to school founder Luang Pho Boonmee Akkaboonyo. Nine monks from the temple chanted holy stanzas and partook in a morning meal.
In the afternoon, school officials handed out scholarships.

The school traces its roots to 1956 when Naklua locals Prong and Yin Phansamniang donated five rai of land to Boonmee to build a temple. He had only 40 baht to spend, but built the temple with donations from the community.

In 1960, he applied to the government to open a Prathom-level school at the temple and, a year later, opened the Mathayom-level classrooms and the school took the name Photisampan Pittayakarn School.

An advisor to Pattaya’s mayor and Chinese tourists hosted lunch and donated necessities to the Child Protection and Development Center.

Rattanachai Sutidechanai and his family were joined by Chinese friends from the Tourist Assistance Center at the Huay Yai shelter.

They brought along learning materials, dolls, clothes, daily necessities and more. They also hosted a birthday luncheon for Rattanachai.

Human Help Network Thailand Director Radchada Chomjinda, her staff and 100 children thanked the guests and the kids put on a stage show.