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17 years old; first year student at a vocational college, Fine Art, living with her father and elder sister; her mother has passed away.
It was not until she joined arts camp for the first time in 2003 when Bua realized that she has a gift for drawing and painting.
Bua was so competent that the art teachers were touched with her extraordinariness.
Bua has studied hard about drawing and painting since then. Her art works were exhibited both inside the country and overseas.
14 years old, studying in grade 9, living with mother, her father passed way.
The mother is an HIV positive volunteer working in a hospital.
So Jack is familiarized with hospital’s environment and helps her mother to work.
She has gained understanding about HIV/AIDS and explains this to her friends
18 years old, and he completed the sixth grade of primary school, his mother passed way.
Noknoi helps his father to take care of his brother, sells clothes at a market. Everytime that he meets his friends in camp,
Noknoi enjoys everything around him. He tells his friends to ‘do it for fun, don’t be serious.’ Noknoi’s never missed any camp,
this year he enjoys and so proud to be a part of a youth volunteer group and organized several camps for younger brother-sister.
It’s inspired him to continue studying the secondary school.
17 years old, third year student of a vocational college,Computer, staying with grandma; her mother passed away;
her father lives with a new family. New has gone through bad situations associated with the discrimination
against by people in community and friends in school. With patience, learning how to wait, and trying to find opportunity to learn,
she found that arts could help her a lot. Now she can stay calm and concentrate well;
and look at the world from a greater number of angles than before.
15 years old, studies in the non-formal education school system at secondary level.
Yo ceased studying after finishing the sixth grade of primary school because she was seriously sick.
However, when she was stronger, Yo applied to study more. During her free time, Yo usually assisted our workers with
document work or production of media for training in order to build understanding on AIDS. This has helped Yo to earn extra
income and also to learn more about HIV/AIDS. Moreover, Yo also supports herself by doing Thai dancing for hired jobs.
She tries to take responsibility for her personal expenditure so as not to impose on her grandparents or her aunt who send her money.
14 years old, finished the third grade of secondary school and stopped going to school studies
Both his parents died when Mos was a small child, and his father’s parents take care of him. When he was 4 years old,
a doctor diagnosed HIV infection and told his grandfather and grandmother that ‘HIV infected child will not live long,
no need for treatment’. Both of them were very angry and they did not go to that hospital anymore because they refused to
believe that their grandson would not live for long. From that time, both of them searched for ways to help him,
for example if they heard of a new good medicine, they would go to buy it for Mos even though their income was not much;
their only income consisted of a few Baht per day made from selling fishing implements woven from bamboo and a little
money received occasionally from their daughter.
'Wa': 15 years old, stopped going to school after she completed elementary level, and living with her grandmother.
Wa grew up in Japan because her mother remarried to a Japanese. She came back to Thailand at the age of nine
after her mother died and the father disappeared.
15 years old, stopped studying after the fifth grade of primary school.
Since the death of his parents, Ball has lived with his elderly grandmother who can’t do very much to take care of him.
So Ball is growing up under his own care as his sister who is 5 years older than him had to quit school and to leave home to
become a laborer in town in order to earn money for Ball’s and his grandmother’s expenses. Sometimes, she comes back home during holidays.
Ball repeated the fifth grade of primary school for 3 years. He stopped studying because he often missed his class due to
illness and was unable to catch up with his classmates. Ball is interested in learning how to repair motorcycles, and started
to work at a local garage but because of his young age the garage owner was afraid to continue employing him.
At present, Ball has chosen to stop taking ARV because he often forgot to take the drugs. Ball thought that if he became sick,
then he would treat it each time. He thought that adhering to the ARV regimen was too difficult for him.
Ball is a silent child, and he is careful of himself all the time. Many times when everybody participated in activities,
Ball was usually the last person who moved himself; he was motionless but he still listened and observed everything until
he felt that he was ready and confident to do it and participate with friends. When we met him at the time of the fifth activity,
Ball felt free to participate without first considering what he did. In fact he was the first person in his group who began the
drama performance and he was the first actor to speak lines in the play. He smiled when the drama teacher made this observation to him.
15 years old, completed the sixth grade of primary school, and a beauty course
Mod, made her own decision to stop studying after the first grade of secondary school because she felt that she was not good at studying.
Then, she chose to study as a beautician with her elder sister who opened a beauty salon in their village.
This elder sister has taken care of her since their parents passed away.
People in the community know about her HIV infection, but they still came for Mod’s beauty services.
In the villages, there are several HIV infected people and villagers have begun to understand AIDS more.
Whenever she meets her friends at the children’s camp, Mod undertakes the role of camp beautician, and she assists all friends
17 years old and waiting to study in secondary level of non-formal education after she completed elementary level.
Sara is cared by her grandmother who makes a living as a market vendor. Every evening her grandmother has to go to
market and comes back again in the morning of the next day.
During holidays, Sara sometimes accompanies her grandmother to sell in the market.
Sara is 3 years older than her classmates, because she missed classes due to sickness.
At present, she is healthy. Sara pondered about every aspect of life and every incident that she confronted to that are still clear
in her memory. For example, she can remember the moment of time when her friends in the two-seat school car moved promptly
when she got into the car. One of her aunts hurried to clean herself with a towel when she accidentally bumped her.
One new friend told her that she would move to another room if she had a friend infected with AIDS studying in the same class with her.
Even though Sara always tries to warn herself not to be too serious, and that happiness was within her own self,
sometimes she fails to warn herself and she becames distressed.
Sara has ability to dance and she is admired. She likes painting. These things make her be confident in herself more.
15 years old, studying in grade 8 in a secondary school, and living with uncle.
His uncle takes a good care of him. K is good-natured, likes painting, and has a skill on traditional dancing.
He interests in stories about small images of the Buddha and likes Thai style painting.
11 years old, and studying in grade 4 in a primary school.
He has lived at an orphanage for 3 years after his aunt passed away
and his uncle left him alone in a hut in a field located in a hilltribe village
because his uncle did not want to take care of a HIV positive child.
Aod had to take care himself for a couple days until villagers found him and asked his uncle to send him to the orphanage.
Aod’s aunt and uncle adopted him after his mother got a seriously illness. His father disappeared.
All of his family members are ethnic Burmese migrants. A
od was born in Thailand but he and his family members cannot get Thai identity card.
He likes painting and applies to attend the art camp together with 2 friends from the orphanage.
14 years old, stopped going to school after she completed elementary level, and living with grandmother.
Her grandmother believes that the granddaughter would live no long, thus she does not allow her to continue studying
and prohibit health officers to visit them at home because she is afraid that her neighbors will have a curiosity.
It makes Zuza lack confidence to do something, including showing her opinions.
But recently, Zuza interested in doing some activities in a camp,
she did not dare to apply at first because she had to share opinions in the application.
After thinking for a period of time, finally Zuza told that “I have to say what I want, I will apply to it.’
Her grandmother used to think not to allow her to join any camp because every time, Zuza comes back from a camp,
she has to call for going back to school. That is because she knows that the majority of her friends in camps has an education.
Finally, her grandmother does not prohibit her and allow her to continue studying.
13 years old, studying in grade 8 in a secondary school, living with mother, and his father passed away
Last year, Ratee just knew that she had HIV from watching a television program and recognizing the picture of her clinic
where she has health care and treatment and learned that it is the clinic for children living with HIV/AIDS.
She was very sad for a period of time. But when she often joins activities in camps,
she learns about AIDS and meets friends and brother-sister. That makes her relax.
Every time, she comes back from a camp,
She usually tells her mother stories in the camp with her enthusiastic feeling
such as once she felt very happy to meet elder-sister named Bua in the camp, she told her mom that she met Bua personally.
She used to see Bua’s art works from books. She would like to be a good painter as Bua.
15 years old, studying in a field of marketing in the first year at a vocational college, and staying with his elder sister.
Tat had to live with his aunt and uncle when he was young and before his mom and dad passed away,
because his aunt and uncle could support his enrolment in a well-known school.
But last year, Tat had to move from his uncle and aunt’s house
because Tat and his sister are a burden for their uncle who would like to stop a support for them.
His uncle blamed his sister in order to hit and ask her to move out. Therefore, his sister takes Tat to rent a room and live together.
His sister earns for living by working in a shop in order to afford Tat and pay for her studying in an university.
16 years old, studying in grade 11 at a high school, living with her maternal,
her mother has passed away and her father lives with his mother.
The family understands and accepts her well so can support her to learn about anything she wants. Therefore,
Misa has grown up with strong self-confidence and a comprehensive range of talents.
18 years old; studying in secondary level of non-formal education; staying with her aunt; her mom and dad passed away.
Poel was seriously ill and she stopped going to school for several years.
Everybody thought she would never be able to live until today, so she got no supports for education.
She always stayed inside the house because people in community did not accept her.
After she joined the activities with friends, she has set up a new hope for herself.
She has continued her education and intended to gain success in her learning.
16 years old girl, studying in secondary level of non-formal education
Malangpo lives with her grandmother, who weaves cloth and sells it in village, although she earns little income,
she can take care of her sole grandchild. Previously, people in her village did not understand about HIV and they despised her,
but when the health staff and doctors talked frequently with teachers and villagers,
the incidents lessened and finally Malangpo became part of her community.
Once she was selected to be the representative of the students to carry the school’s name sign in the community’s annual festival.
14 years old, studies in the fouth grade of secondary school.
Ton-or feels that her previous life has not held much happiness, she was concerned her grandmother and had to take care
herself in order not to be the burden on her grandmother because her grandmother also had many worries, furthermore
her grandfather had a new family, he did not help them anymore. Her grandmother earned a living as a vendor but her income was not very good.
Getting acquainted with her camp friends who often participated in activities, Ton-or had happiness with this new friendship.
Her friends gave love, concern, and they maintained their relationship by seeing each other frequently,
it made her feel warm at heart, like having another family whom she engaged with.
Hang Daab’: 16 years old; studying in secondary level of non-formal education; living with his aunt, and his parents passed away.
Hang Daab has gone through several bouts of serious illness.
At one stage he stopped taking his medicine because he could not stand the large amount and its bitter taste.
He did not care about what would happen in life until he had a chance to meet friends, exchange ideas with them,
produce some art work and gain admiration from people who liked his work. His hopes for taking care of himself have now returned.
13 years old, studies in the first grade of secondary school.
Kobnaikapo is the youngest group who joined our activities, even though sometimes he could not keep up with his elder brothers and sisters.
He could not read, and could write only a little, but he had very high aspirations and he was happy among his brothers and sisters.
He told us that he respected some of the elder boys like ‘fathers’ because they took care of and stayed with him.
Kobnaikapo is being raised by his mother who works as a PLHA volunteer. Sometimes Kobnaikapo follows her to work.
Once Kobnaikapo met with an elderly patient who joined a group activity, who told him that ‘You have to take your medicine,
if not you will die. I, myself also take medicine’.
Around 4-5 years ago, his mother was seriously ill, and it has remained with him as a negative memory about sickness.
Kobnaikapo told us that he was afraid to die and he did not want to die yet.
He often reminds his elder brothers and sisters to take their medicine consistently.
14 years old, studying in grade 7, living with grandmother
Dao used to have a severe sickness. She did not go to school as usual. Thus, she cannot read and write as she should be.
People in community know her HIV status. She does not have many friends.
Once in a camp, Dao made a puppet from natural products and she introduced her puppet that “I am a dirty flower.
This morning is another day that I have no friend.”
After attending camps, she has gradually changed from a quiet child to be a friendly child who is familiar with friends.
She talks with her confidence and she is very cheerful.
At present, her grandmother and Dao move to live in another place. Here,
Dao has her new friends to play with. Her dream is a beautician and a literate girl.
Papaeng likes joining camps very much.
She likes to express her abilities in terms of giving opinions, being a master of ceremony, singing songs, and dancing.
She makes her friends be joyful and she is usually a leader to do various activities.
She plans to continue 14 years old, studying in grade 9,
living with grandmother and auntto study at a technical collage to learn a design and to be an architect. |
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