Update on Temple Aid Program

Unbelievably, the puppy (in the previous post) is alive and well. He’s happy, running around, healthy as a dog, and we vaccinated him. In the words of Ms. Elissa: “Yo! That is really hot!” (I love that woman.)

Update/Stats since last entry:

- 5,000 baht donation from Roots and Shoots club to Temple Aid Program (haha)

- 1,300 baht in donations

Led to:

- Six vaccinations for dogs

- Four vaccinations for puppies

- Deworming of puppies

- Three successful sterilizations

- And two more dogs at the vet now

.. and lots of food and TLC for all the dogs in between. The Care for Dogs team came today with some volunteer vets to check out the dogs’ conditions and take out the stiches of the sterilized dogs. They seem so much thinner though. Up next is a longgg photo post.

I love Fleaty! You rock Fleats.

Fluffy is being sponsored by the 3rd grade class. I can see why!

Yo! Check out that puppy. You know who he is! Doesn’t he look so much better?

Khun is the proud mommy of many.

Please check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/rsnis for more pictures.

 

Temple Aid Program Off the Ground!

“Nakorn Payap Making a Difference”

– This is a special post for Ally, Karin, and Amandine to let you all know how things are going!

NIS’ Temple Aid Program has officially begun! Last week on Wednesday, we had our first meeting with a shocking attendance of 26 students! Ms. Elissa’s room (which served as our meeting area) was so full that there were no seats left over, and some students had to sit on the floor, much like during our first assembly where Ally and Amandine came to give us a presentation.

During the first half hour of our meeting, Ms. Elissa and I handed out sheets to the students and informed them of the program, reminding the kids that they were making a commitment to the dogs and the temple. Afterwards, we all headed out to Wat Nong Ba Klang — two buses full of kids! — to see the dogs and start cataloging them. The dogs, almost thirty in number, were happy to see us and we took pictures and named some of the newborn puppies. The kids seemed really fond of the dogs, and we were received very warmly by the monks at the temple. Unfortunately, I think that some of the puppies are not going to live very long lives. Three puppies have died since my first visit to the temple, including this one:

And I also noticed that this puppy (to the left) could not walk very well. In fact, he couldn’t walk at all. When he saw us, he tried so hard to clamber towards us, but there was no strength in his feet, so he ended up walking on his ankles, stumbling with every step. In addition, he could barely open his eyes with the amount of ’spooge’ that was around it, and I really don’t think he’ll be there when we go to the temple again tomorrow.. sigh. The first time I saw him, I didn’t expect this to happen.

In situations like thse, one must proceed with the end in mind. Though we may lose several puppies or dogs along the way, eventually, we will save so many more. I really think that we’ll be able to succeed with this program. There is so much enthusiasm from the students, so much commitment from Ms. Elissa and Ms. Navinder, and so much support from the school community that I can’t see how this program will fail. We have to keep pictures like these in mind, and remember our responsibilities to the dogs at this temple. We must feed them, vaccinate them, care for them, and sterilize them. And of course, how can one not forget — also give them some Tender Loving Care!

Some recent updates: Today we organized a bake sale to raise funds. Various students and teachers helped bake some delicious desserts for us to sell, ranging from jello, brownies, chocolate chip cookies and pop corn. I think we made around 3,000+ baht, and coupled with a 500 baht donation, and a donation from Roots and Shoots, we have enough money to fund several vaccinations and perhaps a sterilization!

Tomorrow we will be having another Temple Aid Program (TAP..?) meeting! Half the club will head to the temple, whilst the other half stays at school and discusses some important issues, and what the goal of our club should be. Let’s hope all goes well!

 

Care for Dogs Shelter Visit and a bit more

It’s nine pm, I’m sleep-deprived, my body aches, and I’m just a bit hungry. But as long as there’s music and this blog, I can get through another day! Hah! This is Yu again, finally posting the pictures of our shelter visit at the Care for Dogs shelter exactly one week ago (I apologize), and just some pictures of some things Anna and I did today.

This morning Anna and I helped out with an organization (I’m afraid I do not know the name) that focused on stopping the child sex trade. It was their first event, and geared towards raising awareness among foreigners, we had people get on rickshaws (otherwise known as ’sam-lors’, which translates to “three-wheeled”) with the organization’s banner on the back, and each passenger would wave a poster. It was really quite an interesting event — lots of foreigners and lots of rickshaws.

It was, however, extremely hot and we were wearing black shirts! We stood in the merciless sun for two hours giving out bottles of cold water, posters, and t-shirts. Sadly, I wasn’t able to get a picture of the rickshaws, but I did get pictures of Chiang Mai Coffee Cafe, the small cafe we got our water from. I love the decor.

Care for Dogs Shelter Visit

Finally, we come up to the good parts. Just a bit of a review before we get to the shelter. A week before our shelter visit, we organized a ‘Drive for Dogs’ week, in which we asked students, teachers, parents — anyone, if they could! — to bring something for the needy dogs at the shelter. We made announcements every morning, and set up our collecting area in the canteen. By Saturday morning, we had quite a load to bring with us! I was rather afraid we wouldn’t have enough space in the bus, actually.

Before we were able to reach the shelter, we actually got a little lost! Fortunately our driver noticed the tiny sign pointing to the shelter and we got there. It was a fun, activity-filled day; we washed the dogs, walked them, took care of their medical wounds, vaccinated them, and just had a wonderful time.

Here are some pictures! Watch this space as it is continually updated:

 

The Care for Dogs Drive

Hey Everyone, it’s Anna here!

This is the first time I’ve actually written anything on the blog, so I’m pretty excited. As a member of Roots and Shoots I should have, of course, but we all have so much to do every day that it’s easy to forget to. Anyhow, here I am. In the Roots and Shoots current events this is what’s making the rounds: The Care for Dogs Drive!

We wanted to help the organization Care for Dogs as much as possible, so we decided to ask everyone to bring in something for the dogs, such as dog shampoo, chew toys, food, towels and leashes- anything you could think of, really. So we made posters and put up flyers around the school, as well as having Announcements about it every day, so people wouldn’t forget. So far though, it seems people aren’t as enthusiastic about this drive as they could be, but I’m sure that will change! We still have three days, after all, and if everyone tries to talk to people about it, surely more people will donate.

Another big thing that’s happening with the Care for Dogs crowd is that this Saturday the 24th of March, we’re going to visit their shelter! What this entails is that we will help them with their usual tasks, such as washing and grooming the dogs, walking the dogs, vaccinating the dogs, and even cleaning the dogs’ ears! Is that funny or what? We’re all really excited, and this lunch time we had a meeting about it, deciding who wanted to do what first. Other people in our school are interested as well, so they can come too, though we don’t want TOO many people there, or else we might get in each other’s way, right?

Hopefully that will be a wonderful learning experience for all of us, as well as being fun! I’ll sign off for now, but watch out because I’ll be back!

 

Care for Dogs Fair, Part II, and recycling

The days have flown by. It’s already Friday, the end of the week. I imagine we’re all relaxing at home right now. Well, I’m here again (Yu) just with an update post on our fair today and R&S updates.

Care for Dogs
The day began with my voice blaring from the P.A system. It is an uncanny feeling, really, to hear yourself talking in a relatively quiet room, and hear your voice again, much louder, from an outside source. The announcement was to thank everyone who bought something for Care for Dogs yesterday, and that they are really helping these dogs. I did remind them, however, that the best way to help was to adopt one of these dogs and give them a warm loving home.

Lunchtime I met with Ally once again to get more things to sell, and she came with a huge bag of stuffed animals — the ones we ran out of yesterday — that I kept stock of in the office. They were adorable as always, and I think I must’ve been hallucinating from my rather small lunch (a box of guava) but I saw sadness in their eyes. Yes, I must’ve been hallucinating! Dogs and their eyes.. hmm.

Unfortunately today, even though we set up our ‘booth’ right in the middle of the hall, I think most people had already had their share of buying the little doll pups, and we didn’t get as many people. Some asked if there would still be a sale on Tuesday — as Monday is a holiday — and I could only give an unsteady reply. However, since the merchandise won’t be going anywhere, I’m sure we’ll be able to get a little more out of them.

Talked to Mr. Troy, and after discovering that next week would only have three days, we rescheduled the shelter visit for the week after. Thank you as always to Fun, Betty, Jackie and Eve for helping out with the booth (if I didn’t mention someone I’m sorry), and all the kind people who donated something for our cause.

Recycling
Mr. M, our regular recycling guy, came today to pick up the plastic bottles and paper, and we got 92 baht this week. I feel rather bad that I couldn’t help him put the plastic bins back, for really, it isn’t his job, but hopefully next week we’ll do better.

Canvas Bags
Wanted to head to Concept (the design shop that is doing our bags) today after sending Betty home but my mom was too busy to go. Hopefully I’ll head there this Saturday to pick up the sample (I really hope it’s there waiting for me!) and get our design on file to put up here.

That’s all for R&S updates today. Website still under construction, so I’m writing posts to nobody at the moment, really. Next week I hope we can discuss World Watershed Day, Movie Night, and the planned social.

 

Care for Dogs Fair, Part I

Hey everyone, it’s Yu here, just updating with some pictures and what’s been going on lately.

Today Roots and Shoots held what has been unofficially dubbed the “Care for Dogs Fair”. Yesterday Ally Taylor from the Care for Dogs organization came to the school at lunch and dropped off two boxes of things to sell; these included ceramics, doggie dolls, keychains, mobiles (not phones!), postcards, and several posters and signposts for us to put up, and of course, two rather large donation boxes. Most of the R&S members were having a pizza party just then, but surprisingly enough, that day we managed to earn 1,212 baht in donations and sales!

This morning I arrived at school with a metal grille of some sort I had taken from my defunct oven, and Ms. Oil, the school’s secretary, helped me put up the little keychains on the grille with the ingenious use of paperclips (thanks Yuu for suggesting that!) and we displayed it in the office window. From right that moment, the keychains started selling like hotcakes — something me nor Ms. Oil was prepared for. People kept buying the adorable little dolls throughout the morning, until lunch, when Ms. Oil told me that she couldn’t sell anymore things. I feel quite bad — her whole morning was disrupted.

Lunchtime we had a meeting to take a stock list of all the things we had. By this time we’d pretty much run out of keychains or dog dolls! At 12:30 R&S members met in the front of the office, then moved up to Ms. Elissa’s room. Pretty much everyone except for Mr. Troy was there, and they all helped to make our stock list. Monika left her pencil there, but I hope she got it back.

After school was when the real fair started, but by then there wasn’t much to sell. I had Eve and Jackie help me carry the boxes of things to the canteen, where I thought would be a good place to set-up. Well, I was wrong! Despite much interest in the first ten or twenty minutes, it started to get quiet really fast, so we packed up and headed to the front of the school building, where Eve, Jackie, Nok, Gale and Dolly helped to sell things to the little kids and the many teachers there. Mr. Rory helped point out an interesting detail about the metal dog paper holders we were selling, but I don’t think I should mention it here!

Kaimook also dropped by to tell me she had collected the paper from the elementary building, so recycling should go well tomorrow. She looked really tired, and she probably must be, dragging a load of paper up and down three floors!

By about 3:40 we decided to clear up, as a lot of people had already gone home, and we had sold the majority of our things during the day, before the sale. Eve and Gale helped me count the money, and here, what we’ve all been waiting for, is the total of what we’ve made!

5,448 baht! Wow!

I can’t believe we’ve made so much! I called Ally to bring more merchandise for tomorrow when we’ll have the second day of our dog fair. Tomorrow I hope we can discuss what we want to do with this money we’ve raised! You can see the pictures of our fair in the gallery.