Tonrak Ananda Marga School
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Support the development of Tonrak High School
Proposal for an extension of Tonrak A.M. School
Tonrak High School began with a bamboo structure that functioned as class rooms. It is now mostly eaten by termites and are now demolishing it. In its place you can help to build a two-story building with a first-floor open space and garage, a ground floor for activities such as sports, arts etc. and a second floor with three class rooms each 7x7 meters.
The total floor space of the proposed building is;
ground floor 143sqm, first floor is 198sqm, second floor 220.5sqm.
The total of floor space is 561.5sqm.
The primary school can finally get their classrooms back and the immigrant children can be enrolled in need of our services and provide them with proper, basic education in Thai language along with their mother tongue.
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Tonrak Ananda Marga School, Extension
Background
Sangklaburi town is a border town just 50km from Burma. The population is mostly made up of immigrants from Burma along with hill tribes of the area. A high percentage of the population is stateless or with just a permit to stay at the border town. The illiteracy is high and only among the younger generations has there been an opportunity to study and learn to read and write.
Due to the ongoing conflicts in neighboring Burma people still run across the border into Thailand for safety, for an opportunity to find food, low paid jobs and to give their children an education. The recent repetition of civil war has led to a huge number of fresh refugees, many children end up in local children’s homes, some can stay with relatives on the Thai side or the children who live just on the border travel into Thailand daily to enroll and study in Thai schools.
The problem our students are faced with are many; separation from family, loss of parents, in some cases fathers or both parents fight against the military junta, broken families or domestic abuse. The children suffer loss of identity as well and loss of belonging to place and culture. More than half of the children who study in our school live at local children’s homes.
Stateless Burmese children are permitted to study at the Thai border towns. The problem is that government schools are not accepting children who can’t speak Thai, and some of who enters in the middle of the terms or are too old to enroll into grade 1 (as many have already studied several years in Burma but here, they must start from the beginning). Our school takes special care of these children to help them jump grade so that many of them can pass primary school in only 3 to 4 years.
The Existing Project of Tonrak Ananda Marga School
Tonrak Ananda Marga School means a ‘growing tree of love on the path of bliss’ It was started by Didi Ananda Anuraga and registered under the Thai Department of Education in March 2005, reg. no. 5008. It exists of a primary school building with a teacher’s room, a computer room, a library and 8 class rooms. In 2007 we created the kindergarten from an existing building with 3 class rooms and a small teacher’s room ad it was registered as well, in the same year.
After having noticed that many of our students stopped studying or dropped out of school in junior high in the local Thai schools, we decided to start a junior high in our own school. This would keep our young teens in a well-known and safe environment while their hormones changed their perspective of life and played havoc on their emotions. In 2013 our high school was registered with the Thai Educational Department as a Learning Center. This has shown itself to be a great move, we are now keeping them all with us until the end of junior high with very rare drop outs. The problem since than has been a lack of space as the junior high school students continue their study in the primary school building. The total number of students is now 242 students from kindergarten to junior high year 9. It is of uttermost important now that we finally can build a new structure with 3 class rooms for the high school students.
With the Burmese war and huge increase of Burmese children in need of Thai education, emotional support and help to obtain a legal status in Thailand this need is now more urgent than ever.
Proposed Model Junior High School
We had for a while a bamboo structure that functioned as class rooms. It is now mostly eaten by termites and we are at present demolishing it. In its place we want to raise the two-story building with a first-floor open space and garage, a ground floor for activities such as sports, arts etc. and a second floor with three class rooms each 7x7 meters.
The total floor space of the proposed building is; ground floor 143sqm, first floor is 198sqm, second floor 220.5sqm. The total of floor space is 561.5sqm.
The primary school can finally get their classrooms back and we can enroll the immigrant children in need of our services and provide them with proper, basic education in Thai language along with their mother tongue.