A sponsorship in Thailand
It was a kind of mutual business: my colleague was looking forward to retirement and I was hoping to become his successor. He was looking for another donor who would be willing to help a schoolchild in Thailand with 25 marks a month. His brother-in-law was married there and took care of his wife with four sisters who had recently lost their father. The girls' mother had accepted work in the quarry to get the family through. But their wages would not be enough to let the girls attend secondary school. The colleague, himself a father of four children, already supported one of the sisters, for two more sent his mother-in-law and a colleague money. Missing one more. "If I get the job, I'll take it," I promised.
Education is the best protection.
So I became a member of the "Children's Paying Club", as the colleague called us disrespectful. I set up a standing order on his account. Several times a year he sent a larger sum to his brother-in-law, who managed the money for the girls. After a few months, the first post came from a place near Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. A handwritten statement of every baht (the national currency) that the brother-in-law had paid to the girls: for school uniforms and books, notebooks, pens and pencils, bus tickets. And a letter from my godchild Et: "Dear Mother Tsolo," she wrote to me? The colleague apparently betrayed my internal nickname on his last visit. She would study hard to start "something with computers" later. The heartfelt thanks of the 13-year-old shamed me. What was 25 marks a month? For the girl, perhaps the salvation from sexual exploitation already in childhood and a life as a forced prostitute. The best protection against this fate is education, training and a job. A regular income. When she was 16, Et wrote me that she did not need any more money from me. She had gone to school long enough and it was time for her to make money. She wanted to be a tailor.
From the deceased mother-in-law of my colleague I "inherited" the sponsorship for the youngest sister, so I stayed in the "Kinder-Bezahlclub". He now had the reputation of a tirelessly bubbling source of money in the village. Maybe because the suitcases of his colleague and his wife were heavier with our gifts every time they visited. The two had to learn to even say no? and to give the questioner the feeling that he has not lost his face for a second, that he takes on the role of supplicant. For Europeans a high art, for Thai people a common way of dealing with each other. When the brother-in-law died and his wife left the village with their son, the "Kinder-Bezahlclub" lost its base after more than ten years. All four sisters have completed secondary education? the youngest with grades so high that teachers recommended sending them to college and later to university. That would have cost tuition in horrendous height. My colleague, now a master of diplomacy, negotiated with the relative who now took care of the girls instead of the deceased brother-in-law. There was a solution: The excellent student applied for a gifted scholarship? and got it. Maybe someday we will see her again as an internationally known scholar on television.
P.S .: I only stayed a very short time, not even a month, without a godchild. About a friend I met the retired teacher Hedwig Reiser. She has together with her husband and some friends the association "godparents of Indian children e.V." founded, which supports several boarding schools in central India. There, the children of the indigenous people (tribals) get an education. The tribals are in the social ranking still below all caste and are bitterly poor. Your only chance for a decent life is a skilled job.
Further information under www.paten-indischer-Kinder.de
