by Dr. Iain Corness
A
man stood up in front of young children in a dry and dusty Isaan village
school saying, “I want to tell you how important it is that you study
very hard to learn English. If you want to get a good job outside Thailand
when you leave school, you must be able to read, write and speak English.
With English you can travel the world and be understood by people in every
country in the world, and like anything else in life, the more effort you
put into something, the greater the rewards.” To make sure that they
really did understand, he had an interpreter deliver the message in Thai
as well.
If the above words were delivered by a politician, you
would not be surprised. After all, a politician is supposed to look after
the welfare of his constituents and their children. However, when those
words were delivered by a 17 year old American from New York, it is
surprising. Very surprising. But Andrew Titley is a very surprising young
man.
He has lived in New York for almost all his life, and
looks like the archetypal young American, short hair, fresh-faced and
chewing gum. And that New Yorker twang. Yes, he is definitely an American.
He went to public schools in New York, but always had
an interest in life beyond American shores. He entertained thoughts of
being an Egyptologist, “But 9/11 changed all that.” Four years ago he
visited Thailand with his father and was impressed. “I enjoyed the
people, the food, the language and the culture. It’s a far cry from how
people act in America,” said the young philosopher.
He returned to Thailand with his father last year. His
father was getting remarried, and for Andrew it was another chance to
further explore a foreign country and to meet his stepmother who was a
Thai lady from Si Saket. Being a visitor, he was taken round his
stepmother’s village, including a stop at the village school. There he
met the teacher charged with the responsibility of teaching English, who
asked Andrew if he had any old children’s books as these could make
teaching the language more interesting for the students. Andrew made a
note and mentally vowed to raid his bookshelves at home and send some
over.
However, it was something that had obviously made an
impact on him, and on the long plane flight back to America he began to
think why should he just stop with his own bookshelves? There would have
to be others like him with books they had outgrown too. This was the start
of his project, to be a book drive to help some children in a foreign
country.
He discussed the idea with his mother, with whom he
lived in New York, and his father, and although he received moral support,
the project had to be Andrew’s. Being an “e-student”, he first
designed a website for his project, and called it ThaiBookDrive.com
“where one book can make a difference.”
He then approached his English department at his
school, but far from being enthusiastic about spreading the English word
overseas, he was told of the problems he would have with registration of
his concept, licenses, receipting and the like. For most 17 year olds that
would have been enough cold water to douse the flames of youthful
enthusiasm. But not for Andrew Titley!
He began by addressing classes in his school, with his
appeal for books for the children in Isaan. The books began to come
rolling in. He sent a flyer to every school in the county and began to get
some second-hand textbooks. He spoke to librarians about old stock, got
some space in local newspapers and haunted garage sales for suitable
books.
As the publicity expanded, more people came to hear of
his concept. One of these was Steve Frantzich who had a company called
Books for International Goodwill, which was shifting warehouses. Steve
told him he would donate several thousand books, but Andrew would have to
find a shipping agent first.
This was a most necessary stimulus. By this stage,
Andrew’s mother’s house was so full of books they could not get into
the lounge room! So he began to contact shipping agents, but did not
receive the enthusiastic response that he had hoped. Quite the reverse.
“I received some very demoralizing comments, including ones that said
they didn’t want to donate to 17 year olds,” said Andrew.
However, one company did feel that a young man with
enthusiasm deserved a break, and BDP International’s Richard Bolt in
America and Claus Dittmer, their area manager in Bangkok, donated a 20
foot ocean freight container to get the books, now totaling over 60,000,
to Thailand, from the USA. Another company, Triways Logistics and their GM
in Bangkok Lim Kok Wee, then got the cargo to Ubon Ratchathani.
Andrew returned to Thailand to arrange distribution.
“I wanted to visit the schools, not just leave books,” said Andrew. He
also felt that being a youngster himself, the Isaan children might be able
to relate to him and his educational message. “I think it is important
that they understand that someone outside of their village actually
notices them,” he said simply. To this end he has visited 64 schools and
addressed 12,850 students. That’s a lot of noticing!
However, Andrew has not finished there, as he has a
second batch of books arriving, and again this has been done through more
sponsors such as shipping agents CDS Overseas (Jospeh Yau and Supawan),
Metro Express Trucking (Jimmy Hogan) and Target Logistics (Chris
Coppersmith). There will be another 12,000 Isaan children who will reap
the benefits of a young man with vision and determination.
His maturity is also far more than you expect of a 17 year old but
Andrew laughed, “Growing up on New York you have to get used to life.
What you don’t learn in school you learn from walking around the
neighborhood!”
