New Miracle in Nong Khai

Many have applied to study at the Redemptorist Vocational School for People with Disabilities in Pattaya, but leaving the comfort, safety and protection of their family and home environment is a big upheaval in their lives, one which many can not cope with.

This young man with disabilities travelled for ten hours to enroll at the school in Pattaya.

Therefore, as the vocational school in Pattaya prepares to celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2011, there are plans to build another vocational school in the northern city of Nong Khai. This new school will offer an education to locally based people, and as with the school in Pattaya training in Information Technology will be at the forefront.

The school will also teach a basic education to those people who, for whatever reason, have not received their primary education. Another feature of the school will be the course, Empowerment of People with Disabilities in the Community, which will give the graduating students knowledge of the law, human rights and the benefits available to help people living with a disability in the local communities.

The students are learning in a borrowed class room.

Future plans include expanding the school to provide more facilities to offer training for up to four hundred people with disabilities from Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

There are currently eighteen students studying in Nong Khai in a small classroom borrowed from a local monastery. Accommodation is basic, with all male students cramped into one small room, sleeping on mattresses placed next to each other on the floor and with a few fans to keep them cool.

Funding is needed for the first structure which will be named the ‘Father Ray Building’, in honour of Father Ray Brennan the founder of the Father Ray Foundation. The total construction cost will be 15 million baht, and whilst some funding has already been donated by the UK based ‘Thai Children’s Trust’ more funds are needed.

It is almost thirty six years since Father Ray first accepted a young baby into his care, and since that day the Father Ray Foundation has continued to grow to provide what a child or a person with a disability needs to become independent and decent citizens. Whilst most of the work of the Foundation is based in Pattaya, this new school planned in Nong Khai needs support to provide the people of Isaan with the same facilities and chances that the vocational school in Pattaya has been able to offer.

For more information about the school in Nong Khai please contact

Mr. Mike Lancaster

Development Director

Father Ray Foundation

Tel. 0851083933

Email: mike@fr-ray.org