Saan Jai Rak | Sprite and Kristen Chuenchum
Thailand
There are over 120,000 children currently living in orphanages in Thailand. 90% of them are estimated to have a living parent or relative that could care for them.
Why are these children living apart from their families?
Poverty is the main reason. A family becomes so poor and so desperate or hits some unimagined crisis and feels they can no longer put enough food on the table for their child, let alone provide them all they need to live a full and happy life. So thousands of loving parents resort to the option available and leave their children at one of the 700+ orphanages currently open in Thailand to be raised.
One particular orphanage in Thailand that houses children ages 0-6 reported that around ⅔ of the children in their care could go home if there were family strengthening supports in place to help build the parents’ capacity to raise their own child.
Poverty should never be a reason a child is taken away from their family.
Project Saan Jai Rak was created to bridge these gaps in the system in Thailand so children currently in residential care/an orphanage can return to their biological families. “Saan Jai Rak” (pronounced "sahn - jai - rock") in Thai means “by weaving our hearts together, we heal”. Our vision is to improve the lives of children returning home from residential care by strengthening their families and communities.
Families in need of family strengthening after receiving their child back into their home after being inappropriately placed in residential care. Because families in these kinds of situations give their child up due to poverty, we work mostly in poor, under-resourced communities, equipping parents with the tools they need to increase their income, develop their parenting skills, and build their resilience so they can give their children all they need to thrive.
- For healing. Removing a child unnecessarily from their family at a young age causes trauma that could affect the child’s physical, emotional, and behavioral health and development. Pray that as they return to their families, they find healing.
- For families. We are not the heroes in these stories - these moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas who receive their children back into their home are. Pray that God would empower them to be the best parents and caregivers they can be.
- For communities. We believe deeply in the potential of local knowledge and resources. Project Saan Jai Rak is unique in its approach to family strengthening as we will equip and train local leaders - who we lovingly call “hidden figures” after the American movie by that name about the African American women who were behind the brilliance of NASA. We believe that by infusing family strengthening knowledge into the community level through these “hidden figures”, not only will the family receiving our services be strengthened, but the entire community will become safer for children.