Baan Piranan - Latest News

Update - Baan Piranan Cerebral Palsy Home Care
Mid January 2010

 
Once again, we send best wishes to all our supporters for a happy and healthy New Year 2010.  PLUS our continued thanks for your support!

Joop Jang Returns To Her Mother

It was an uphill medical struggle, but we are happy to report that Joop Jang’s cast  was removed, her wounds and her bone fracture repaired.  To a mixture of both sadness and delight (sadness at saying good bye) her mother was given an early release from prison, she immediately came to Chiang Mai, and was reunited with her daughter.  Our staff spent the better part of a whole day teaching her mother how to provide a proper and nutritional diet, and she was outfitted with enough extra calcium and vitamin D to last for at least 2 months.  Hopefully Joop Jang’s mother will stay our of prison and find an alternative to selling drugs to support her family.

Wichai Returns

During the short period while we were attending Joop Jang’s recovery and special care, our long time resident Wichai temporarily returned home with his family.  Unfortunately (and predictably) his health and well being deteriorated quite dramatically.  He lost weight, developed multiple skin infections, sustained multiple bites, grew depressed, and began experiencing epileptic-like seizures (something we had never witnessed during his previous 14 months living at Baan Piranan).  However, the good news is that he is back with us again, he is clean, his sores and infections have all but disappeared, he is gaining back his lost weight, and his smile has even returned.

Understanding Difficult Challenges

One of the difficult and often stark realities of working to repair the lives of severely  disabled children involves our frustration, and sense of helplessness at our our inability to repair deeply entrenched negative public attitudes toward disabled persons.  These attitudes permeate both family and community life, they are common, and especially in the rural areas we serve.  The point being that we can often repair or improve the lives of individual children, but when these children return home, they often return to pre-repair conditions.  Rest assured that our staff and our Foundation do all we can to inform and educate family members and public officials  but overall change and development do not happen overnight.  

We have seen many  positive changes, but Thailand still has a very very long way to go before it reaches disability enlightenment.  A case in point is Joop Jang’s mother who was just released from prison after serving her sentence for narcotics sale.  She has 4 children at home, her husband disappeared and provides no financial support, and the only public assistance she receives is 500 Thai Bht ($15) per month.  However, we are not deterred.   One of our long term goals is to set up mobile community based rehabilitation clinics to teach officials and family members how to resolve their own problems.  Hopefully, one day soon, we will be able to realize this goal.

Again, thank you all for your support!