The Christian Foundation for the Blind – Thailand (CFBT) formally accepted Kayeng at their Bangkok Ram Indra campus. Kayeng met with Director Mr. Komon Malaithong at the campus (after waking up from his normal afternoon nap ) and Mr. Komon’s staff. They were excited to welcome Kayeng and excited to introduce Kayeng to the school.
The staff found Kayeng to be very interested in the school facilities and particularly interested in the braille “typewriter”. Kayeng will be part of a special program of five students, whose main teacher will be a recent graduate of a master’s program in special education.
Give Children A Choice will seek from its donors support to cover Kayeng’s annual education expense of 80,000 baht. It covers all tuition, room and board expenses. Dr. Pinita and Dr. Nattawut’s collection of donations from their family and friends will be used to cover the first year of expenses as well as other logistics expenses. Thank you again Drs for your generous efforts to help Kayeng!
Kayeng’s Dad Vakoung will be living and working at the school during the early years at the school. He will earn a monthly salary. Both will eat at the school’s cafeteria, receiving three meals a day.
CFBT has seven campuses throughout Thailand and operates under the auspices of HRH King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Children attend classes on campus for the grades 1, 2 and 3. After that, they attend public school. CFBT teachers and the public school teachers work collaboratively to enable the children to attend public school and study at the CFBT campuses, using technologies that link the two.
We are incredibly impressed with the CFBT administrators, teachers and graduates, the school and their accomplishments. We met one graduate Paterisa, now 29, who started going to school at CFBT at 10 years old. She is now working on her doctorate dissertation and law degree in London (having already earned a bachelor’s and two master’s). She is specializing in public policy for the disabled. She’s lived in the London for the last 9 years and is close to completion to move back to Bangkok to put into practice her knowledge.
While it is not to us to determine Kayeng’s future, we do know that he is bright and he is being given a very special opportunity to get an excellent education and hopefully return to his home country to help his country Lao PDR. Kayeng is the first non-Thai student to attend any CFBT campus.