Children's & Home Visitation Programs

The milk and food supplement program began already in the year 2000 and continues today. At that time as well school fees and supplies were distributed to a small group which has now grown from 60 children to 400. Not all the children are HIV positive, but among the 400 about 60 are HIV positive and remain in the villages with either a single parent or with grandparents for those whose mother and father have already died. Families look forward each year for this distribution which helps toward the education of their children and are grateful for this support. This program is an important outreach which gives both physical and moral support to these families - it is the concern of the Center to help these children who need extra help in villages as those children living in the orphanage are well cared for with a secure future.

Often during home visitations many of the neighbors will gather out of curiosity to see what is happening—this is a good means of educating others as well as they listen to the counseling given to the person inflicted with aids. Everyone can ask questions to become more familiar with aids and hopefully they will lose some of their fears connected with aids and promote less rejection to those inflicted. Village life in Thailand is a very close and open style of living—there isn’t much that is not known by everyone living nearby. Inspite of education and awareness people are still afraid and there is still a lot of rejection.

Early Activities

Beside weekly family and village visitations the Center had a yearly distribution of help to children of HIV families with school fees, school uniforms and supplies to 60 children. In the early years there was only the one HIV group which belonged to Mother of Perpetual Help Center. Because of the limited space at the small rented building such distributions were held at a large meeting room made available at the local government hospital. Later such distributions and larger group meetings were held at a temporary bush material building on the rented property of one of the staff members.


Development According to the Needs—HIV Groups

During the next two years as members became more stabilized and as members of the HIV group continued to grow the Center encouraged more groups to be formed. As the Center staff became well known for their knowledge and background with the aids disease the Health Department began to invite them as resource persons to give training and education about aids to village groups in outlying areas. With frequent contact also with local District hospital nurses and doctors HIV groups were formed in the District hospitals of Sibunruang and Non Sang, later in the Districts of Naklang and Nawang and lastly in the farthest District of Suwan Khu Ha. These groups met regularly each month and staff from the Center tried to attend their group meetings as frequently as possible. As the years went by and groups became confident within themselves they were able to write small projects to government agencies to procure funds which helped them with their monthly meetings for food, travel and visitations to members of the group who were not able to attend due to ill health.

The Center continues to have regular contact with these groups and it is through these groups and the group leaders that the Center gathers information and knowledge as to the most needy cases who need assistance. When possible leaders from each of the groups are invited to attend training sessions at the Center in health care, the use of the new medications which are being provided by the government hospitals, child care, nutrition and hygiene.

The Center is fortunate in the sense to be working in the Province of Nong Bua Lamphu as it is a fairly small Province with only six Districts, so it is possible to have contact with HIV infected persons throughout the Province. It is estimated that the Center is in contact with about 500 families of which there are 60 infected children that are known to us. With so many persons infected the groups and their leaders are invaluable as helpers since it is impossible for our staff to have regular contact individually with so many people and to keep up with all the activities of the Center.

A monthly supply of powdered milk, eggs and other food supplement are distributed to the most needy children in each of the District groups. We have been fortunate to receive help for this purpose through Missio Austria and other agencies in Europe.

Mother of Perpetual Help Center

Mother of Perpetual Help Aids Center began as a “Welcome House” in 1997 where persons infected with HIV/AIDS could come for counseling and moral support. The Center was started with the help of a former seminarian from the Diocese of Udon Thani and operated out of a simple rented family house where he and his wife lived on the upper floor with office and meeting space on the ground floor. In the early years there was a small staff of Mr. Ratanakul Photi with his wife Fon and two volunteer workers, one of whom was HIV positive herself and still remains with the Center today (2009). An HIV monthly group meeting was formed where those infected with aids could meet regularly as a means of group support and to learn about health care.

As time went on and the group grew the Center staff went out on home visitations weekly and eventually larger training sessions evolved where health care workers from the Public Health Department and the hospital were invited to give medical help and advice. Other training sessions began with village groups in order to give more education about HIV/AIDS so as to minimize the fear which became more and more evident as the sickness increased among so many.

The Center would have had to close its doors had not the SVD Brothers come to help with the Center, especially to enable projects to be written and presented in English. The local staff of the Center did not have sufficient command of the English language to write and present projects to overseas agencies. One of the first tasks of the Brothers was to write projects firstly for the day to day activities and salaries of the Center. It was a slow and difficult task in the beginning to become known and trusted among agencies.


With time and patience gradually enough grants were received to maintain the day to day activities of the Center and eventually grants also came to help with the building up of the infrastructure.

The first two years were spent listening and going on weekly visitations to persons and families with HIV. It was not always easy in the beginning to know just what was going on in particular with the language. The time was well spent and as a result a good grasp of the needs became clear and help being received which made possible the construction of the new Mother of Perpetual Help Center and at the same time the construction of St. Michael’s Catholic Church, the first in the Province of Nong Bua Lamphu.

First Arrival in Nong Bua Lamphu, Northeast Thailand

One year later, March 1, 2000 the Brothers left Bangkok and arrived in Nong Bua Lamphu where Bishop George Phimphisan, CSsR had assigned the Brothers to work at Mother of Perpetual Help Center.

A few months before completing language studies the Brothers came to Nong Bua Lamphu to find a place of accommodation. With the help from the staff of
the Center a suitable small house with three bedrooms in the city village of Khiang Doi was found. The house needed a good cleaning and a some repairs along with a new paint job—this was arranged and done before arrival. The house though small was suitable for two persons and the monthly rent 4,000 baht (about USD 100).

Nong Bua Lamphu was formerly one of the Districts of the Udon Thani Province and in 1993 became an independent Province with six Districts of its own. The new Province was the least developed of the five Provinces within the Diocese. The only Catholic presence in Nong Bua Lamphu Province was Mother of Perpetual Help Center, which at that time was a simple rented house where the manager and his family lived on the upper floor, there was no Catholic Church and a priest from Udon Thani came to celebrate Mass at the Center once every four to six weeks with very little attendance.

Nong Bua Lamphu Province beside being the least developed of the Diocese was and still remains the poorest of all the Provinces in the Diocese due to little to no industry. The majority of the people are rice and subsistent farmers with little income. The area remains dry and arid with six to eight months of dry during the year making farming difficult. During the few months of rain it often floods—either too little or too much rain. Inspite of the difficulties for people to earn a good living, the family spirit and morale is high among the people in this Province in comparison to Provinces such as Bangkok and other larger Provinces. The level of education as well is not as high statistically according to reports gathered by the United Nations.

Because of the Poverty in this Province many of the young when completing school tend to leave the Province to find work either in Bangkok or neighboring countries where they are often exploited and return to Thailand jobless.

First Arrival in Thailand

Language Studies

March 20, 1999 Brother James Wilkins and Brother Damien Lunders arrived in Bangkok to begin Thai language studies for one year in preparation for new assignments in the Diocese of Udon Thani, Northeast Thailand. Thai language studies were not to be easy, especially being a tonal language and to add to the difficulties—starting studies at an advanced age. The Union Language School is owned by the Baptist church and many of the students were either to work with other religious denominations, as well priests and nuns studying for future work in various Dioceses’ throughout the country. Other students from Korea, Japan, America, Australia and other countries for future employment with companies in Bangkok. Most students were to study for up to one year—those younger students and in particular Asian students learned the language much quicker and with greater precision.

It is imperative to learn the language as well as one can to communicate with the local people. One thinks of Thailand as having one language; namely, “Thai” however there are many dialects as well. Here in the Northeast there is a big influence from Laos being only 90 kilometers from the Laos boarder across the Mekong River. Consequently people in this area speak primarily what they call the “Isaan Language”. The majority of people of course understand the normal central language, but prefer to speak in the local dialect.

As well as the language being different, the people have quite a different liking for food—very hot and spicy, sometimes un-cooked—in Thai called “dip”, when cooked called “suk”. These terms referred to fruit as well, if fruits are not yet ripe, they are “dip”, when ripe “suk”.

Thailand - A New Mission Venture for SVD

Some years ago Fr. General Henry Barlage in his introductory letter in one of the Arnoldus Nota’s encouraged members to venture out into new horizons, new missions.

Br. James Wilkins while in the United States met a group of Franciscan missionaries who had information seeking volunteers to work at their aids center outside of Bangkok. When I met Br. James during my home leave from Papua New Guinea he asked whether I would be interested in this project—not thinking too much about it I said yes I would. On my return to Papua New Guinea I visited the aids center there and at that time a Spanish missionary priest was in charge of the center. He said “they were no longer interested in volunteers as the Daughters of Charity had now taken responsibility for the center”. He said; however, “that if we were still interested he could give us contact with a Bishop in Thailand”. We left it at that and much later agreed that we were still interested, so made contact again with this Spanish missionary who then gave Bp. George Phimphisan, CSsR in the Diocese of Udon Thani as a contact. Brother James made contact with Bishop George who said he was very interested to have the SVD.

As time went on discussions were held with the Provincial of Australia, Fr. James Knight. He seemed quite open to this venture and was helpful over time with encouragement that this venture be persued; thus, negotiations began with Fr. Henry Barlage who seemed also to be somewhat in favor; though he initially mentioned that perhaps we might be interested and consider working in Vietnam instead. Over a long period of time and through much dialogue between Provincials of Australia and Papua New Guinea we decided that we were still interested in Thailand and eventually permission was granted for the Brothers to go to Thailand on an experimentary basis.