About
Opening Ceremony
Mr. President of Rotary Chiang Mai, Ms. Winnie Cain, representatives of the Richard Hua Foundation, members of the Mae Sruay and Pa Bong Government, committee members and staffs of the ABU Akha Women project, aq yui, aq nyi.
We thus were happy to be able to rent a hostel and give scholarships to Akha girls with the help of the SEAMP-Foundation, Netherlands and the Netherlands government in 1994 for an initial start. Since 1998 our Akha Women project was very lucky to come in touch with the Richard Hua Foundation thanks to Mr. John Hobday’s acquaintance with Mr. Michael, in order to have sufficient funding for scholarships. At about the same time Mr. Ernst Janzen and Ms. Lucinda Kasperson of Rotary Northbrook Chicago as well as massage therapist Ms. Winnie Cain of Mesa, Arizona had become impressed by the needs as well as the potentials and resourcefulness of the Akha women.
These were the beginning of important steps into the direction of the development from a simple hostel/cum scholarship project towards the formation of an ABU Akha Women Educational and Cultural Center .
An ABU Committee hardworking over the years, an excellent manager, Mr. Atcha and staff have helped the ABU project to grow. Several Akha women, about 80, were able to study in Mae Sruay high school. But the hostel was too small and did not belong to the SEAMP/ABU project.
Today, July first, a Buffalo day in a Termite Year a dream of many years has become true. Thanks to Winnie Cain, massage therapist from Arizona USA and Rotary International we are able to open our new ABU Akha Women Educational and Cultural Center . Winnie is here and also some members of Rotary Cheang Mai, especially President Werapong, besides Mr. Noppadol and Mr. Supawat, who have promoted our cause so well after meeting with Ms. Lucinda Kasperson.
Thanks to them we now have a first building with a meeting room and offices downstairs and a kitchen/restaurant building (given by Winnie) and a large washing/toilet place, a water tower, tables/chairs, twin beds, two computers, sewing machines (they did not yet arrive all) and kitchen-equipment (Rotary).
We are extremely happy that we now can speak of a real Akha Women Educational and Cultural Center . 25 students now can go to the nearby high school and they also get cultural education (Akha writing and reading), besides sewing/embroidery training.
We hope that after this first building a second building will follow next year enabling us to also train the village women in self help Primary Health Care. The situation in the mountains is difficult, but our ABU Center wants to be a sigh of hope for 40,000 Akha women in Northern Thailand and more than one million Hani/Akha women in Burma , China , Laos and Vietnam .
Hope for the women is to be equal to men to be healthy themselves and have healthy children with a future. To be able to maintain and adapt their culture to modern times, faithful to the ancestors of the Akha of 60 generations since the founder Sm io.
I ask Ms. Winnie and Mr. President Werapong to proceed to the opening ceremony by cutting the rope.
The Foundation is now working to raise money to build a clinic where the Akha women can learn skills to support their families, and where the traditions of Thai/Akha massage and herbal medicine will be taught and practiced. It will be a place where visitors can learn about Akha culture and study with the villagers. By providing the opportunity for the Akha people to share their unique knowledge, we help them preserve their way of life and cultural heritage.
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