This isn’t a post about craft business. As its blog action day I just wanted to reflect a little on a very important issue.
2 months ago my partner, Al went to Thailand to work in a make-shift clinic run by volunteers on the Thai/Burmese border. Straight away he was faced with the effects of lack of funding in an over subscribed tropical clinic. These effects were only amplified by the fact that Al has spent his medical years training in the privileged West in hospitals which have access to the newest technological advances. In this tropical clinic many procedures are performed in very unsanitary conditions often without anaesthesia.
The most shocking thing that Al had to deal with was the discovery of 400 plus Burmese refugees living on a civil dump. These poor individuals (displaced by the usual crap that affects the small guy: warring parties and politics) literally have nowhere else to go and no welfare support whatsoever. These families have made themselves huts in which to shelter and they try to eke out a living by recycling plastic and other materials. I won’t go into what they eat…
Al and some of his colleagues raised some money to purchase first aid kits, immunisations, vitamins, and to buy boots for the children to protect their bare feet from infection. Looking at the scale of the problem (for this was only one dump of many and soon Al and his colleagues would leave for their Western homes), I think it might (at times) have been tempting to turn away in hopelessness…
Al says that it was a difficult thing to do, it was hard work, humbling and frustrating, but on the day when they gave out the boots to the children there was a lot of happiness on both sides! There’s no moral to this post. I just think it’s important to help those in need when you can, and the way in which you can help doesn’t matter so much, just that you do. Every little helps.
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I think these little ones are pretty happy with their new boots 
More pics in Al’s Flickr.
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Kris is a fun and crafty mom of four. She expresses her creativity as the owner of Jesse Kate Designs, a sewing pattern and machine embroidery brand. Kris also stays busy as the site manager of 
Crissy is the founder of 
Lisa is a generally content (who said generally - don't get her started!) 30 something living in London, who amongst other things sells everything you might need to make unique and lovely handmade handbags at home from her online store 
Thank you for a post that made me think, Lisa. I think the way that Al helped is probably the best (but most unfeasible for most of us) way that you could possibly help. The idea of giving those children the boots and actually seeing them put straight onto their feet is an amazing one…which I think is one of the difficult things to get your head around about giving to charitable causes here…it all seems so far away, and often you can’t be sure that what you’ve given money-wise or donated clothing-wise will have really ended up with the people who most need it. It appalls me that a sizeable chunk of money donated now is spent on paying people to collect direct debits door-to-door or on the street for the charity (yes, those people wearing charity vests and carrying clipboards in Covent Garden are paid! To me this doesn’t add up) as it wasn’t so long ago that people collected money without expecting to be rewarded themselves financially (I remember as a child that I spent hours some weeks collecting for Amnesty International with my mother).
Gosh, rant over…where did that come from? x
Florences last blog post..The one where I follow a pattern!
Lisa, sometimes a picture really brings a situation to life! Giving those children ‘wellies’ was a flash of brilliance. I went to look at Al’s Flickr – it was a wonderful thing he and his colleagues did and in our greedy, materialistic society we should all be a bit ashamed. Florence, I’m with you – I hate to see those ‘chuggers’ in our shopping centre – since when did charity become ‘big business’? What a sad world we live in.
Kay Susans last blog post..We had the builders in last week…………..
@ Kay Susan:
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. If only those who hold the most power felt ashamed…
I don’t know those folks in the shopping centre got paid! What a disgrace!
I can’t imagine what Al and his colleagues must have experienced, but it’s wonderful that they did something concrete to help rather than just thinking ‘how awful’. It’s so sad to think of the extreme deprivation some people have to live with day to day.
Helens last blog post..My – has it really been a year already?
@ Helen:
For him helping at the dump was one of the highlights of the Thailand clinic because the clinic itself was really underfunded and most of the staff were unqualified (because they were volunteers!); Al found this seriously frustrating! At the dump they were able to help in a positive and tangible way. All in all I think it was a bloody bad situation, at home we are terrifically lucky!