(L to R) Chalan Sakolyuth
and Waeth Narinthorn receive help from local YWCA Chairwoman Praichit
Jetpai and friend Sunthorn Photcha.
Manoon Makpol
The YWCA Bangkok-Pattaya Center has stepped in to
provide advice on long-term employment and planning options to an infirm
family of five that has been begging through the media for nearly four
months.
YWCA Chairwoman Praichit Jetpai and club members
called on Thongsuk Narinthorn and her family at their Nongket Yai home
June 7. Vikrom Malhotra, manager of Massic Travel Co., presented them
with 1,400 baht for a month’s rent, but YWCA officials offered perhaps
the more-valuable assistance in advice to get the family back on own
feet, instead of relying on charitable handouts.
Thongsuk, suffering from arthritis, has appealed for
donations since February for herself, her 80-year-old father, Shalan,
76-year-old mother Waeth Narinthorn, and sisters Nuaree Sakolyuth, 45,
and Oradee Sakolyuth, 25. Despite numerous appeals to the media, only a
few thousand baht has been given in two months.
Shalan is paralyzed from the waist down and suffers
from kidney disease. Waeth is a stroke victim, Nuaree has lung cancer,
and Oradee has cystic fibrosis. If they can work at all, they earn money
picking up trash to recycle, selling second-hand goods or in a
low-paying waitress job.
The family was evicted from their home in March, but
an unnamed landowner near Nongket Yai came to their aid, offering land
to rent at 15,000 baht. The family says they still need 45,000 baht to
build a new house.
Praichit said she will send Oradee to Pattaya Massage
School to learn a trade and will cover her training expenses for a
month. The association will also employ her for a month as a maid or
gardener. The YWCA will also plant seeds and vegetables for the family
to grow its own food and coordinate with area hospitals on their health
care.
Thongsuk said she appreciated all the public
assistance, but saying she was too ill to even sell lottery tickets,
which she told the media in February she would try to do to earn money.
She said the family would consider the YWCA’s offer to send Oradee to
school, but reiterated she still needed nearly 50,000 baht for her
house.
