One of our ongoing programs within the Chiang Rai Village Project is the Mobile Clinic Program. The aim is to give full medical check ups to hill tribe people of the villages we support.  During 6 days in the beginning of February, volunteer doctors and nurses from the Camillian Hospital in Bangkok, together with representatives of the Camillian Social Center Chiang Rai, visited a total of 11 villages and one village boarding school and screened over 1,000 hill-tribe people.

 

 

The mobile units gave medical check-ups and distributed free medication for common ailments, as well as vitamins, first aid kits and anti-lice treatments. The weight and height of all children is checked and their growth measured over time and a file is kept on each person.  450 brochures on prevention of common ailments and on proper hygiene and nutrition for prevention of diseases and spreads of infections were distributed to community leaders, teaching staff, and community members.  Families were trained on hygiene and nutrition and healthy lifestyle habits.

 

As of Decemer 2011, the Pistorio Foundation has had to end its support of the Lithang School project due to the Chinese government  request that there be no more foreign support to this project.  The local government wishes to take upon itself the running costs of the project.

The Foundation hopes this is a positive assumption of responsibilities on the part of the government, and that there will be no changes made to the current curriculum of the primary school and the high quality level of the education the children have been receiving. The government has assured that the curriculum, consisting of Chinese and Tibetan language, Maths, Art, and English, and History, Geography, Civic Education, and Physical Education, will remain unchanged and the government will bear all costs for the scholarships of these children.

The Foundation nevertheless intends to continue sending volunteers to visit the campus to follow the progress of the school and children.

 

Dormitory built by the Pistorio Foundation on the left at the Lithang School Campus	Primary School students in class

 

In 2006 the Pistorio Foundation built a Dormitory at the Lithang School Campus for 80 children of nomad families. The children live at the School Campus during the academic year and return to their families in the summer months.

 

A nomad family of Lithang

Their families migrate several times a year raising yak and are mostly illiterate and unable to afford an education for their children.  The Pistorio Foundation has been supporting the scholarships of 80 primary school children since 2006, providing education, primary health care, and nutrition.

  

We are pleased that since 2006 in June 2012, 66 children will have completed their primary school education, and 14 will finish the following year.

 

The children completing their primary school education should continue to secondary school in Lithang.  

 

We would like to renew our gratitude to Venerable Tztatak Rinpoche for his vision and diligence in running the Lithang School and ensuring top quality education to these children and to the Ghe Peh Ling Center in Milano for having partnered with the Foundation in this project. In recent years, some of the best students in the Lithang school have taken part in regional competitions and won top rankings. In addition, one of the most rewarding results of the project has been the understanding on the part of parents of the importance of education and the trust they have built in the school, witnessing the positive impact of schooling and thus helping to educate the rest of the nomad population on the importance of education.

 

 

New Video Message of Pasquale Pistorio 

 

 

The video is on our website at http://www.pistoriofoundation.org/message/message.html

 

Audit Missions

We would like to thank Antonio Piccoli for having spent several weeks in Thailand last December working with our local partner, the Camillian Social Center Chiang Rai, in Thailand.  Antonio has a wealth of experience having worked for 20 years in the non-profit sector for NGOs including CIAI and Intervita and having lived in many developing countries including Sierra Leone and Cambodia.

 

Thank you to volunteer Country Manager Mohamed Lasry for his Audit Missions in December to Azrou, Morocco to meet with beneficiaries and with the local partner Azrou Centre for Community Development (ACCD), and report on the progress of the Morocco Project.

 

Singapore Chapter News

 

Inkind Donations

We would like to thank Gianluca Lionetto of Tennis Tonic for the donation of sports equipment for our primary schools, and Evelina Camilleri and Peggy Khoo for the donation of clothes, books, and soft toys for kindergarten and primary school aged children.  A total of 8 boxes of nearly 100 kg have been shipped to Chiang Rai and the items will be distributed to our primary schools and kindergartens in the hill-tribe villages.

  

Thank you to DHL for the generous sponsorship of the shipping.

 

 

 

 

Book Drive

Thanks to the sale of the Huang Yao Foundation Children's Story books, the Foundation has raised already over S$ 1000.

 

We are very grateful to our volunteers and to FIFTH ELEMENT and The Natural Clinic in Singapore for helping sell these books, and to the Huang Yao Foundation for the generous donation of over 100 beautiful children's story books.

 

Awareness Raising Activities

Elena Pistorio gave an enlightening lecture to all Grade 6 classes of the Canadian International School in Singapore on January on the subject of "Poverty", giving examples from the countries in which the Foundation operates and discussing solutions to poverty alleviation.