The Miracle of Sukhumvit

“On December 4, 1996 there was a ceremony that surpassed any ceremony in any country in the world. Most ceremonies are for signing contracts, or official greetings of important people. The ceremony I am talking about was neither. It was a ceremony celebrating a miracle; the miracle of changing a person’s life. And it all happened at the Redemptorist School for Disabled Young Adults in Pattaya, on a road called Sukhumvit. 

It was a graduation of over 100 young people who one year ago were not only handicapped, but unable to find employment because of that handicap. What made the ceremony a spectacular and unique event was the fact that all the graduates, both women and men, remain handicapped, but were graduating with a guaranteed job waiting for them. A job that would have been impossible for them if that had not attended this very special school. They came to get their diploma in wheelchairs, crutches, braces, limping and some almost crawling. 

The Redemptorist Vocational School for the Disabled is a vocational training school built expressly and entirely for handicapped young people over 17 yrs.

Each year there are many more applications for the school than there are places available.

The students know it is the best vocational training school for the disabled, not just in Thailand, but in all of Asia (including Japan!).

The curriculum is simple and to the point. A student either studies an intensive one year course in Electronic and Hardware repair, or, a very intensive two year course in Computer Science.

For 8 hours a day, with an extra hour of study in the evening, each student only studies only the occupation for which he or she is being trained. That goes on for six days a week, ten and a half months a year. 

The school has no fee for room and board, nor does it charge a school tuition. The school is absolutely free. It is absolutely dependent on donations.

The school tries to accept the poorest of applicants. If the school feels that the family of a handicapped young person can afford a regular vocational school, that young person is not accepted into the school.

Since the school is supported by donations there is a direct relationship between the amount of students accepted each year and the amount of donations received. The average cost of one student for one year is 50,000 baht. 

The school considers the attitude of the student as very important. The faculty lets the students know in no uncertain terms not only what is expected of a student in the school, but also what the student can expect from the school. Namely they are the recipients of a gift which thousands of young Thai people in the past did not have. The faculty lets the students know this is a once in a life time opportunity. No where else would they be able to live free, eat free, study free and have a guarantee of a good paying job if they finish their course”

In the fourteen years since Father Ray put pen to paper and wrote this letter there have been many changes both in Pattaya and throughout the Kingdom.

The Asian financial crisis of 1997 meant that foreign donations bought more baht than in previous years, allowing Father Ray to start new projects; most important of these was the Home for Street Kids, now known as the Fr. Ray Children’s Home, and the Fr. Ray Drop-In Center.  

Governments came and went, but the work of Father Ray continued and his children needed to be fed three times a day and his students needed educating

Father Ray died on the morning of the 16th August 2003, and his funeral was the largest Pattaya has ever seen or is likely to see. Family and friends arrived from around the world and they joined thousands of his children and students, past and present, in saying farewell to a great man who changed the lives of many. Representatives arrived from the Royal household with a donation of Royal soil which was placed on top of Father Ray’s coffin, and each year on the anniversary of his death a memorial Mass is held at the church he helped build, St. Nikolaus Catholic Church on Sukhumvit Road.

The vocational school Father Ray writes about continues under the management of the Father Ray Foundation, and has grown considerably in size. The choice of courses has risen from the original two to six, and there are currently two hundred and fifty students. The number of female students has also risen, thanks to generous supporters who paid for a new accommodation block which was officially opened in 2007 by HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn.

As with most things in life, the cost of educating the students has also risen. From the 50,000 baht it cost to educate a single student in 1996, the cost of educating, feeding and accommodating each new admission has now risen to 140,000 baht each year.

The name of the school has also changed. The students do not see themselves as handicapped or disabled, but rather they see themselves as people with disabilities; they are people who have a disability, and not a disabled person who is incapable of achieving anything. To give it its full name the school is now known as the Redemptorist Vocational School for People with Disabilities.  

More than two thousand five hundred students have graduated from the school since its founding, and these former students sit alongside able-bodies colleagues as equals, and, in the words of Father Ray, they are now able to ‘earn their own rice’.