DEVELOPMENT-THAILAND: AIDS Orphans Find Temple of Hope

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

CHIANG RAI, Thailand, Jul 19 2002 (IPS) - A Buddhist temple tucked in a picturesque terrain of sloping hills covered with lush tropical foliage is offering hope to some of the most vulnerable children in northern Thailand – AIDS orphans.

For three years, orphaned girls like Chintana and Chaba, both 15, and both from families reduced to poverty due to the killer disease, can study at a secondary school providing classes in math, science, social studies and Thai.

In this setting, the children are able to nurture their dreams after their family tragedies.

Chaba, for instance, aspires to become a teacher of languages, including English. “I like the lessons here,” she says softly, looking at the floor. “I have enjoyed the two years.”

Some among the other girls orphaned by AIDS – more than 40 in a student population of 168 girls – echo that view of their life in this school at Wat Bhumipalalam, the temple on the northern fringes of Chiang Rai, a large city close to Thailand’s northern border with Burma.

The force behind this offering of hope is Phra Dilok, the abbot of the temple. Since the school opened in 1996, the temple has been inviting girls coming from families living in abject poverty and AIDS orphans to enrol in it. They can come when they are 12, and stay on as boarders for three years.

“The children are treated equally, like a family,” says the 48-year-old Buddhist monk. “At some point, the children are taught about AIDS. We have books that help, but the children are not singled out for any reason if they are AIDS orphans.”

The seven teachers working in this boarding school, where the children live and learn for free, combine both the academic requirement of the Thai education system and a slice of Buddhist teachings and practice tailored to their young charges.

“We teach them to meditate, to live in harmony and about morality,” Phra Dilok explains. “The value system in northern Thailand is also emphasised, so they are aware of their moral obligation.”

As this special school marks its first six years, its founding father has another reason to feel content — none of those who have passed through the halls of the two school buildings have been lured into the vicious grip of Thailand’s sex industry.

Phra Dilok attributes this to the effort by the school to “break the chain of girls ending up in the sex trade” from the north, though he is well aware that this is an achievement still too early to cheer about.

The temple’s activism is praised in this town that is a popular destination for tourists keen on seeing the region’s ethnic communities, the hill tribes, and trekking through forest paths.

“The temple’s role is very important to protect and help the children orphaned by AIDS,” says Songnam Ritwanna, a director at Population and Community Development Association, a non-governmental body that has been in the forefront of HIV/AIDS awareness and assistance efforts in Thailand.

Songnam estimates that Chiang Rai has more than 3,000 children who have lost both parents due to AIDS. Thailand has 290,000 children AIDS orphans, the largest number in all of South-east Asia. The next highest, Cambodia, has 55,000 AIDS orphans

Thailand’s northern and north-eastern regions have a larger number of HIV/AIDS patients than the rest of the country. Currently, there are some 670,000 adults and children living with HIV/AIDS out of Thailand’s population of 63.5 million people. ..

Some of the children and adults living with HIV/AIDS have also gained from Phra Dilok’s broader mission – to help the poor villages afflicted by the epidemic. The six monks in the temple regularly visit the homes of those living with HIV/AIDS to offer succour.

“The monks provide patients with medical help,” says Phra Dilok. “If the family is too poor to afford a funeral, the temple helps.”

This practice of monks reaching out to those afflicted by HIV/AIDS is in keeping with a pattern that has spread gradually across Thailand, 95 percent of those people are Theravada Buddhists. There are more than 250,000 monks, 10,000 nuns and 30,000 temples across the country.

One organisation treading this enlightened path, for instance, is the Sangha Metta Project, which was initiated by Buddhist monks in northern Thailand.

“Taking the Buddha’s teachings as their inspiration, monks concluded that a core aspect of HIV/AIDS was ignorance about the condition among both the sufferers and the general public,” the project’s web site explains.

Monks, nuns and novices learn about the epidemic, and are trained in social management in order to do community work aimed at curbing HIV transmission and helping people with HIV/AIDS and their families.

What led Phra Dilok down this road was something more personal. After returning to Chiang Rai after two years’ meditation in a forest, he noticed that a woman who had regularly given food during his morning route for alms was missing.

On further inquiry, he learnt she had died of AIDS. That event more than 10 years ago convinced him that Buddhist monks had to address HIV/AIDS to address the needs of their communities. “I felt it was necessary to educate children about the disease,” he says.

However, the nightlife in this town provides an ample reminder about the number of girls who have not benefited from the likes of Phra Dilok.

Typical is 21-year-old ‘Joy’, who works at a karaoke club. By the time she was 15, she had lost both her parents – not to AIDS — and had to stop schooling due to poverty. By 19, she was as sex worker.

“I am afraid of getting HIV, but I have no choice in this work. I insist on condoms,” says Joy, who on average has sex with about five to six male clients a month. “Every month, I go to a clinic to test.”

For her, unlike Chintana and Chaba, the Bhumipalalam temple serves only one purpose at the moment — the place she goes monthly to pray for her dead parents.