Operation Blessing (OB), in partnership with Step Ahead, provides child development centers, skills and language training, and micro-enterprise projects for many living in Thailand’s tsunami impact zone. For the 2008/2009 fiscal year, Operation Blessing has increased Step Ahead’s financial monthly support to $14,910.<

Child Development Centers

Each month, $8,000 of Step Ahead support is used to cover the running costs at four child development centers, in Phang Nga Province, southern Thailand. These running costs include educational resources, teacher’s wages, food, electricity and maintenance.

The four centers, built with OB financial assistance, are located in Pru Tieow, Tap Tawan, Lam Kaen, and Koh Nok villages, and provide educational development and child-care for more than 100 children, aged 2-5 years old.

Skills & Language Training Center

Since its inception after the December 2004 tsunami, Step Ahead has trained hundreds of tsunami victims with job and language skills to help them rebuild their lives. Operation Blessing funding supports the costs of running this training facility.

Ae’s English improves at Step Ahead: On December 26, 2004, Ae managed to swim to safety when the hotel she was working at in southern Thailand was destroyed by a devastating tsunami. Ae eventually found work with a foundation called ChildTRAC. This organization has been sending its staff to learn English at Step Ahead since September 2007. Ae enrolled in the Advanced English Course for four months and noticed a significant improvement in her use of the language. She wrote, “The benefits I have received from studying at Step Ahead are that I am gaining more knowledge, improving my language, pronunciation and accent.” The Dutch ChildTRAC management team thanked Step Ahead for teaching their staff because they had developed a higher level of proficiency in English while studying at the Language Training Center.

Micro-enterprise & Eco-tourism

Operation Blessing assists Step Ahead with funding to establish micro-enterprise & eco-tourism initiatives in the South. Some of these include:

• A mushroom farm cooperative in Lam Kaen village ($1,500)
• An orchid farm in Koh Nok village ($1,500)
• A handicraft export project for unemployed ladies in Kao Lak village
• An eco-tourism project with the Thai Mai Tribe to re-furbish five houses in their village of Tap Tawan. These houses will be used to raise money for the fishing village with home-stays from foreign tourists who seek a unique Thai cultural experience. ($1,500)