Mission accomplished in Thailand !

THAME United player, Stuart Barr, has recently returned from a visit to Thailand where his team helped rebuild the compound around a school for orphans after a torrential storm washed it away earlier in the year.

Stuart described the trip as follows: “After our 24 hours of travelling, we finally arrived at 7pm in Sanglaburi, Thailand at the Baanunrak Children?s home.
Work started the next morning at 7am until 7pm with two hrs off during the peak of the day as the sun and temperatures often exceeded 40 degrees.

“As the security of the compound over the last year had been a worry for the staff at the orphanage, it was more important we fitted two sets of gates that closed the home off to surrounding villages. This was purely for the children’s safety and in no way did it make it feel like a prison as they have plenty of land for the 150 kids to play football and do their other activities.

“The gates had been made by a local engineer who fabricated them from some old shutters that someone had donated. Fitting a huge set of sliding gates wasn’t even something I had challenged at work at home so it was something I had to put my mind to. As no one had any drawings or even an idea of how they wanted them, it made it even harder, not forgetting the lack of tools.

“The first thing we did was to take a trip into the closest village on some borrowed scooters where we could buy some tools. But even that was a struggle with their limited resources. However we cracked on and managed to get three sets of gates up in eight days and left the compound 100% safe, mission accomplished!

“Not only did we have to do the manual work but we had to train up the some of the older orphans who wanted to become workers, albeit for wage of 120 baht a day (roughly