ThyssenKrupp support projects for tsunami victims
Kapong School for Life
In a joint effort with other sponsors, ThyssenKrupp is supporting an initiative by the "International Academy for Innovative Education, Psychology and Economics at the Free University of Berlin" (INA) to build a school. A "Children's World Academy" for around 180 children is to be built near Kapong, a few kilometers into the Namkem hinterland. The children will live on a roughly ten hectare farm. The Children's World Academy will secure the livelihoods of these children, provide them with counseling to deal with their traumatic experiences and losses, offer them a first-class education and give them new opportunities to break the cycle of poverty.
The new accommodation for students of the Children's World Academy is being built here.
The Children's World Academy will mainly cater for children from the Namkem region, where even before the tsunami the inhabitants were among the country’s poorest people. Namkem, located to the north of Khao Lak, was a kind of slum, housing around 10,000 people. It was virtually razed to the ground by the tidal wave. According to survivors, over a thousand people were killed there.
HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn is also a patron of this project. Among the reasons for this recommendation were the quality of the concept and the project plan, the long-term nature of the project and the positive experience gained over two years with the "School for Life" for Aids orphans and abandoned children in Chiang Mai, which is an INA project in northern Thailand similar to the Children's World Academy.
How the children in the Children's World Academy are dealing with the terrible tsunami.
INA educators from the School for Life in Chiang Mai traveled to the area shortly after the terrible disaster and began providing psychosocial support, e.g. by getting the children to draw their traumatic experiences to help them to come to terms with them. After several months of local support in groups, a trip to the partner project in Chiang Mai was organized for teachers and students – for many of the children, their first ever trip. The idea is for the children to experience first-hand life in a school similar to the one being built in Kapong and leave the pictures of the catastrophe behind.
The new accommodation for students of the Children's World Academy is being built here.
Meanwhile, the development of the selected location is being driven forward. A school and accommodation for 80 students and their teachers are currently being built. A small village is being created for the children here. The first buildings of the "Children's World Academy" should be ready for use by the end of December. Further accommodation for around 140 students and teachers is to follow later.
