Right around this time last year, my group, Thailand 125, watched videos made by the group before us that advertised all the different committees of volunteers working here in Thailand. They ranged from HIV/AIDS Outreach committee to the Project Resource Committee to Sticky Rice Newsletter to the Thai Youth Theatre Project Committee. I was drawn to a number of them, and applied for quite a few and was selected to be an editor of the volunteer produced newsletter Sticky Rice and to be the Deputy Director of Public Relations for the Thai Youth Theatre Committee.
A group of my students have been preparing to perform at the annual Festival, the culminating event of the TYT Project, which was this past weekend. Nearly 140 students from 13 different communities came together in Lopburi to learn about singing, dancing, mask making, shadow puppets and sword fighting and to perform a short play entirely in English that they had prepared in front of the rest of the participants. I’ll let the pictures from this weekend speak for themselves.
Overall, the festival was a smashing success: the kids had a blast, volunteers felt proud of their English abilities, Thai counterparts were impressed with the growth in their students’ confidence and there was sanuk (fun) all around. The committee, which I am a part of, is looking to the long term future of this project and we have a lot of big ideas, including moving it in a more sustainable direction and generating more Thai ownership of the event. We’ve certainly got our work cut out for ourselves next year.
A big thank you goes out to those of you who donated to help make this festival happen – we absolutely could not have made it happen without you.