Babies abandon Thailand

                     

                                                                                                                                 ApichetPanjarat 

                                                                                                                                 Nathalee Zoppas 

Thailand has a lot of the problems of premature pregnancies and they are more and more serious. In 2011, adolescents (age 10-19 years old) gave birth to 131,400 babies or 15 babies per hour. With a population of 64 million people, Thai adolescent pregnanciesrepresent about 700 babies per day (only 400 of them will give birth whereas 300 will abort).

  Phayathai babies’ home is an agency which was set up 60 years ago to provide services for abandoned children. We follow the policy of the Department of Social Development and Welfare by trying to prevent the abandonment of children rather by waiting for problems of abandonment of children to occur.dren,are economic and poverty. In developed countries, populations have access to employment in the industry. InThailand, a lot of people are poorly educated.They have just unskilled labor. Although poor and illiterate, they have the same needs as others. They need food, sexual intimacy and family but they lack of parenting skill because of their lack of education. Normal working hours and overtime work make them lack of time to care about their child (ren) which leads to  social problems, youth problems ( with young people hanging around, taking drugs,  committing crimes and  having early sexual intercourse). These problemslead to premature pregnancies, abortion or abandonment of children (because of young mothers who didn’t wish to be pregnant). Most of girls try to abort but fail because gestationalageis tooadvanced. Some of these girls still drink,take drugs,hang around, live a careless life, hide or suffer during pregnancy. They don’t have parents to tell them how to behave.If their children haven’t cerebral palsy or aren’t disabled, they have mental problemsbecause of problems during pregnancy.Mothers have environmental, emotional, socialproblems andsuffer from nutritional deficit. Or they don’t benefit from prenatal care and they leave after giving birth they left.Problems are not only due to the absence of parents but to all kinds of deficits. If not taken care of properly, children will grow up without warmth. They will lake social trust, social resistance to the drug itself, violence ,will commit crimes and willlack of love or will find it hard to love someone because they have  never had a good role model to show them how to be responsible for a family( which could be called “ a domino effect”).

  It is the most important problem in Thailand. We must solve this problem by taking innovative measures and by a serious cooperation between all hospital workers, caregivers or children abuse and antitrafficking workers. It is the aim  of  the project “Stop teen mom PhayathaiBabies’ home”

Solutions: there are twoways of providing help and solutions to the problems above mentioned. Firstsolutions can be found by helping the agency to maintain a high standard by improving the care system to face the physical, mental and social needs of children who should be properly looked after. Nutritionandhygiene are essential too. So are integration projects. Schools and hospitals, teachers and nurses should all work togetherfor the benefit of children.Nursing students should be better informed. In addition, all thechildren should be paired with a medical student from the School of Medicine. Voluntary work should be encouraged. Volunteers are often models to encourage children's care. They love the children and have good relationships with the medical students and administrative personnel. Psychologists, social workersand nurses are essential to the good health and mental development of a child.Different sub-projects have to be implemented to help stimulate major developments of children (for example massage combined with music can be used to stimulate the development of children). It is also very important to hold babies and to speak to them.All children should be cared for and not neglected.Activities such as field trips.sportshave to be developed by the agency. The important part is to send the child to live in foster families  who will look after him or her properly. Volunteers sometimes raise a foster child with their familyso that this  child can know the warmth of love. Fosterfamiliesare selected and paid by the agency to help socialize children. There are visits every month to checkthe physical and mental evolution of the kids.

Secondly, schools , police and the Bureau of AIDS should raise public awareness about the necessities of vaccinations ; The use of condoms should be recommended. Pregnancy prevention programs should be implemented in schools.Students should be encouraged to volunteer to help abandoned children. Indeed, it was found that  there were no premature pregnancies in schools were students volunteered in orphanages. 

The successful strategyis the following:

1. We use public media as television and booksfor data transmission. Our society should be aware of the importance of abandoned children. We have to put an emphasis on the concept “No one should be left behind” for people to understand the problems of drug, abandonment of children and violent behaviors. Integration is essential.

2. Seek help from a famous artist to take part in this educational campaign.Not only will he help to promote our project but het will also help to motivate children. They have to be aware of drug problems, violence and abandonment of children.

3. Pick up children from schools to visit abandoned children so that they can see the problems. Modernmedia could for example broadcast video clips that could be shared on social networks for the prevention of premature intercourseIt would also favor the development of appropriate  attitudes and values.

4. Cooperation with the Ministry of Public Health to get experts from  the Bureau of AIDS and STIs (sexually transmitted infections) to provide knowledge  and carry out  activities with local schools in association with the  Ministry of Education. It would put an emphasis on the risks of sexually transmitted infections and bring about the problem premature pregnancies. Mr. ApichetPanjarat is the expert from PhayathaiBabies’ Home.

In 2010, we received the national award for child care innovation given to a high standard orphanage.

   In 2011,cooperation withthe Ministry of Public Health and expertsfrom theBureau of AIDS and STIs (Sexually Transmitted Infections) permitted to inform people and carry out activities with local schools in cooperation with the Ministry of Education. It put an emphasis on the risks of STIs and raised the problem of premature pregnancies. Mr.Apichet Panjarat was the expert from PhayathaiBabies’ Home Foundation.

  In 2012, five local schools took two children whohad misbehaved, to see the problems ofabandoned children at Phayathai Babies’ Home Foundation and they joined brainstorming groups working on the cooperation with the media and social networks to keep people aware of the different problems.

  It is very important to care for abandoned children and to improve their situation, with an emphasisboth on body and mind. There are two groups. First, volunteer families whoprovide child care and receivea 2,000 Baht grant per month. Another group consists of people working in orphanages. Child caring focuses on 6 factors which are nutrition, medicine, equipment, environment, agood state of mind and innovative child care.

Obstacles and management of problems

There is a problem of lack of understanding and coherence between the various sub-projects due to the specificity of their work. It is a major problem of “Stop Teen Mom” project because this project needs coordination from various sections. So we have set up a strategy to handle such problems.

  The participation of children and youth is essential with monthly meetings to listen to the opinion of eachsection andto improve and develop work.

  It is also essential to work closely with government officials, thanks to a leader who has the knowledge of each section and thanks to specialists sent to participate.

  We also have to encourage other institutes to contest for standard awardsunder the supervision of the respective ministries for being good modelsat work. Our institute and community received an award from the minister for being a model community. Other communities and localities are now interested in our project and concept “No one should be left behind”.