“Adopting a Village” is a Distance Support project in action since 2006 that has changed the lives of many children from the Hill Tribes of Thailand.

Many of these tribes are not Thai, but come from China, Burma, and Laos. Most of these people have never been included in a census, or registered in any way, and thus are civilly “nonexistent”, even if they were born and raised in Thailand.

The activities performed by the Camillian Fathers and other humanitarian organizations have spread among these people the awareness of the need of education for their children, and a wider conscience on the possibility of offering them a different future, more human, dignified, with the possibility of having a job. This urged the parents to look for education possibilities for their children, even when this meant encouraging them to move to centers far away from their villages, taking them away from their roots, their traditions, but most of all from the love and affection of their families.

In fact, there are many villages within the forests in the North of Thailand that are distant from the few existent schools. The children from the villages can get instruction only if they move to the center led by the Camillian Fathers, that receives up to 300 children.

The center is now full, but there is still an increasing number of applications. And since we wish to help and give all children in need the chance of building the future they dream of without having to make a selection on the basis of their situation, a new idea has been conceived. Fratel Gianni thought of a project that shall offer these children education and literacy opportunities, going to school without moving away from their villages. For the children that live in the areas surrounding the school, the missionaries provide for the means of transport adapted for moving through the mountains, they provide for lunch, uniforms, and school materials, and they also take them back home in the evening, back to their families.

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