Social workers and Thai
PBS have teamed up to train people to help homeless children.
Phasakorn Channgam
Social workers and the Thai PBS television channel
have teamed up in hopes of building a network to help homeless children
attain equality and opportunity in Thailand.
Supachai Sathirasilapin, director of the Father Ray
Children’s Home, welcomed Sen. Tungananurak Wallop Tankhananurak, head
of the Committee on Children, Women and the Elderly, and creative
director for the Foundation for Children, to the Pattaya Redemptorist
Center for the start of a three-day training session early last month.
The seminar was designed for teachers, tutors and
social workers who deal with homeless kids to improve their quality of
life, bring them back into mainstream society and communicate through
the media to parents and others about the problem related to runaways,
street kids and homelessness among youths.
TV personality Thongpool “Khru Jew” Buasree led a
discussion on how to use conventional and social media to discuss the
conditions and successes of working with homeless children and how the
public can get involved with such kids and prevent others from getting
into trouble.
The few social workers and teachers devoted to
working with homeless children are insufficient for the problem,
particularly in tourist areas like Pattaya, workshop organizers said.
Much of the homeless problem is driven by materialism and greed, they
said, with some kids on the street out of choice to earn money for
consumer products. Gone are the days of scruffy urchins. Instead,
organizers said, many homeless youths are dressed up in designer styles.
Such images have made it necessary to alert the
public to what’s happening with Thailand’s youths, organizers said.
Hence Thai PBS joined social workers to help them broadcast the perils
of materialism and problems of illiteracy and poor health that come with
homelessness. Attendees were shown how websites such as Facebook and
YouTube can be used in addition to broadcast television.
