Kid Street

Have you ever dreamed of changing the world ? Making it a better place for everyone? If you could wave your hand and make all the hunger, disease, poverty, war and suffering go away, would you ? I think we have all wanted to be able to do this at some time. Unfortunately few people have the time or resources to make any great changes. Life isn’t fair and it probably never will be. We live in an imperfect world. By combining our resources though we can make a difference in the world. We won’t stamp out hunger, disease, poverty, war and suffering, but together we can make things a little better for some of the orphans of the world. If we each contribute some of our time and money we can feed, clothe and educate some of our planets most unfortunate children.
Our goal is to provide food, clothing, education and medical care for as many of these children as we possibly can. This will be accomplished by collecting donations from individuals and companies and distributing the funds to orphanages.
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It is estimated that Worldwide there approximately 143 million orphans.
every two seconds another child becomes an orphan.
42,000 new orphans every day
400,000 orphans die every year due to malnutrition
A lack of food is the orphan's biggest problem.

Every 90 seconds, another orphan dies from malnutrition.
The mission of Street Kids
is to make sure that as many orphans as possible
 receive at least one nutritious meal per day.
And of course receive clothing, medical care and education.
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UNICEF says there are 143 million orphans worldwide. What they don't tell you is that the small orphanages in third world villages rarely if ever have any contact with the big charities like UNICEF, RED CROSS or others. Consequently these orphanages see little or no funding from outside their village. The large charities do not manage to give much money even to the orphanages they do help. These orphanages do not have money for things like internet access and bank accounts. The small amount they get from their village is barely enough to keep the kids alive much less to worry about proper nutrition, clean clothes or education.
We will be traveling through Asia and finding the orphanages in the small villages which do not receive funding. We will be helping them get in touch with different agencies to fund them. We need your help to temporarily fund these orphanages, I will be using some of my own funds but need much more to help these children. One dollar a month is not much, but it will help, if we can get enough people giving just $1 a month we can make a world of difference for these children.
We may also help in the event of natural disasters in whatever part of the world they occur, but the main focus will always be assisting orphanages and orphans.
 

We are changing

 This site started in 2010 but during that time a few people have started using the same name. We have therefore decided to change the name.World Orphans Fund will from this day forward be known as  Kid Street. Our focus is still on Orphanages (including street kids), Orphans and the people who care for them.

501(c)3 Yes or No ?

          Believe me when I tell you this has been a VERY tough decision. There are of course advantages and disadvantages to everything, especially when it comes to charitable organizations. I have been vacillating on this for well over a year and have put a lot of thought into it.

Advantages

Contributions are tax deductible

Can apply for grants and large donations  

People believe this makes it legitimate

Disadvantages

IRS Charges $850 a year for the 501(c)3 status

IRS controls who is on the board

IRS controls who the money is distributed to

IRS determines what you may spend the money on

IRS may revoke the 501(c)3 status for many reasons which are poorly defined

          In my opinion the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages to being an IRS approved (501(c)3 charitable organization. Therefore I decided to set up this charity as a for profit company which pays taxes, although taxes are only paid on profits which will be negligible. Not being an IRS approved charity gives us a lot more flexibility in the things we can do to raise funds too.

Saawatdee Meet Kru Nuannoi Timkul

Saawatdee 
Meet Kru Nuannoi Timkul

     Kru Nuannoi Timkul or "Kru Noi" helps underprivileged children even though she has had a stroke and is not rich. She worked in strained circumstances from 1980 until "Baan Kru Noi" was certified by the Department of Public Welfare as able to care for children in 1987.
     Kru Noi grew up in a poor circumstances and her experiences made her understand the poverty of children who do not have the opportunity to get an education. Kru Noi attempts to help these children past the crises in their lives and grow up to be good productive citizens.. She has spent her life helping them and never given up no matter how tough the obstacles or pressures she faced.
     In 1980 she had a stroke which affected her legs and she had to convalesce at her small house in Bangkok. This allowed her to see laborers' children playing in the fields with no opportunity to go to school due to poverty and the lack of required documents such as house registration forms and birth certificates. Kru Noi decided to use her house as a place for the children, to feed them and to teach them to read and write. Since then, she has received a lot of publicity, and she is still accepting new children even though she has amassed about $250,000 in debt in the process.
     Ten years ago, Kru Noi's story received publicity from the mass media. Organizations, foundations and the general public started helping "Baan Kru Noi" by contributing food, clothes, money,  and toys. They also petitioned the government to allow children to study at primary level without official documents.
     Since 1980, Kru Noi has helped over 1,000 underprivileged children, homeless children and children with imprisoned parents to have a chance for education. Now at Ban Kru Noi, there are total of 55 children, aged between 6 and 18 years. The ones not in school are very young children and children with multiple disabilities. Many of these children go home at night while others live at Ban Kru Noi and in houses rented by Kru Noi.
In Ban Kru Noi, there are only 10 members of staff, 4 teachers and 6 support staff who work in 2 shifts. Kru Noi not only works at Ban Kru Noi but also works with other organizations  and foundations and such as Srinartsiam School, Sriwara School and Sithasinee Foundation  in Bangkok and in other provinces.
     On weekdays after school, weekends, public holidays and vacations, many people used to come to visit Baan Kru Noi, but the visits and support have dwindled in recent years. There are still a few volunteers from institutions in Bangkok running academic activities and entertainment for the children, things like teaching computing , art, music, and English as well as occupational activities such as candle making. This builds good relationships and allows other people to share their smiles and kindness with the children. It can also assist the children in changing their behaviors and attitudes so that they can grow up to be good people and productive citizens following Kru Noi's example. She wants the children to be healty, educated and happy and does not require anything in return.

Baan Kru Noi

Baan Kru Noi  literally means house of Kru Noi.

     So what is Kru Noi ? Not what but who. She is a 69 year old Thai lady who provides a home for orphans in Bangkok Thailand. She has been sharing her home with orphans for the past 35 years. She currently has 55 children living in the home. This is the type of orphanage I was looking for, they do not recieve help from the government or any international aid organizations. I spent about 2 hours there and constantly had children hanging onto me. These children are starved for adult attention, although there are some staff members who assist ms Noi there is just not enough time for all the kids to recieve quality time with the adults.

     There is an old article about Baan Kru Noi here . It is interesting but obviously dated as she now has less than half of the 128 children menioned in the article. She no longer receives the many weekend visitors and donations that she did in years past. I am attempting to raise money to help her and other orphanages, so please donate to world orphans fund or on this blog

View the video or scroll down for pictures

preparing lunch for the children

so many needy children

they all sang a goodbye song

Somebody bought KFC for the kids

Kids playing before lunch

No idea what game they are playing

one of the 4 small dogs

Lined up for Ice Cream

Children everywhere like ice cream

The boys got ice creams that look like bannanas

They held them up and said "monkey"

hard to decide which kind they want

older kids supervise younger ones

I think we bought him out

Mercy Center Bangkok

Mercy Center Bangkok

          I finally found a taxi driver who said he knew where the Mercy Center was at. As I suspected he really was not too sure, but we did finally find it. Mercy Center is located in one of Bangkok’s slum areas, I saw at least three large buildings they own. This is anything but a small orphanage, they have quite a few programs and many people depending on them. They own 33 schools in Thailand and support not only orphans but also the poor people of Klung Toey Bangkok. They have a school there and an HIV hospice, not to mention computer systems and training programs for the children and local people.

      On my arrival I was greeted by Ms Prawina Sompong the communications manager for Mercy Center, she informed me that they were having a graduation ceremony and taking pictures would not be possible today. She then introduced me to Mr John Padorr from Chicago who gave me a short but informative tour of the school and hospice areas. At this time they do not have a well structured volunteer program in place, but did seem open to the idea of accepting volunteers.

The building architecture in Klung Toet is reminiscent of Camodia possibly a French influence at some point ? These buildings are beautifuly built but have not been well maintained for many years. Just from looking I would assume that this area was much more affluent in the past than it is now. 

For more information their websie is located at http://www.mercycentre.org/

Baan Deck Orn Phaya Thai

Baan Deck Orn Phaya Thai

(Babies home in Phaya Thai, Bangkok)

      Another wasted day in the attempt to locate this orphanage. I ended up at an adoption center after a ride on the sky train and two taxi rides. Apparently the orphanage has moved to Nonthaburi on the outskirts of Bangkok.