From left: Seeda Kulao, Pitchaya Mee Aryi with son Jamie Sahatrueangkit, Faii Banphotphatthana, and Khai Kongsi in Boothbay on Monday, July 31. (Abigail Adams photo)
The first generation of Thai women to benefit from the shelter and access to education provided by the Lincoln County-based nonprofit Friends of Thai Daughters will join supporters at the Darrows Barn in Damariscotta on Friday, Aug. 4 for the organization’s annual fundraiser.
Proceeds will help the nonprofit, founded by two Boothbay women more than a decade ago, expand its network of “sunflower houses” through the hill tribe region of northern Thailand.
The houses are a safe haven for Thai girls, co-founder Patricia Zinkowski said. They provide a stable family environment so Thai girls can pursue an education and break the cycle of poverty that leaves many in their communities vulnerable to sex trafficking, she said.
Pitchaya “Mee” Aryi was one the first Thai women to complete high school with the support of Friends of Thai Daughters. She is now the housemother of the organization’s first permanent location in Chang Rai – a property Mee, who worked in real estate, helped the organization secure in 2015.
Friends of Thai Daughters previously rented properties in Chang Mai and Chang Rai, Zinkowski said. Last year, Friends of Thai Daughters opened a second permanent location in Chang Khong, near the border with Myanmar.
The organization plans to open additional houses in the area of northern Thailand that is part of the Golden Triangle, the border region with Laos and Myanmar where drug and sex trafficking are commonplace, Friends of Thai Daughters co-founder Patti McBride said.
“This (program) changed my life,” Mee said. Mee grew up in a village in northern Thailand, one of five children. Her father died when she was young and the pressure to find work to support the family was enormous.
While the Thai government offers free public education, the schools are difficult to access from the remote villages, Mee said. Students must also pay for uniforms and books, which is a barrier for many, McBride said.
Several foundations in Thailand support the education of children, but the support only lasts through elementary school, McBride said. The programs are overcrowded and there is little quality control.
Mee completed her education through the ninth grade, when support from the foundation ended. Through a Friends of Thai Daughters sunflower house in Chang Mai, Mee completed high school, despite pressure from her family to quit.
Her family wanted her to “work and earn money, but (I knew) education was the best thing,” Mee said. “Education gave me a good life.”
Mee is now a leader in her community and “is taking care of the next generation,” as a housemother, Zinkowski said.
Many girls in Mee’s community go to Bangkok to find work, which more often than not means prostitution, she said.
“With no education, what else can you do?” said Khai Kongsi, another member of the first generation of women to benefit from Friends of Thai Daughters. “It’s the easiest job to do.”
Friends of Thai Daughters began when McBride and Zinkowski stumbled across 15 girls living in an abandoned school during a trip to northern Thailand in 2002. Khai was one of those girls.
Khai grew up in a large family, and her father passed away when she was young. She lived with her grandmother while her mother went to work as a prostitute. When her mother returned home, she had AIDS.
Unable to find any other work, her mother began to deal drugs. She was arrested and died in prison, Khai said. Her mother’s story is not unusual, she said. In northern Thailand, drug and sex trafficking are among the only economic opportunities people have.
Khai and the other girls McBride and Zinkowski met in 2002 were placed in the abandoned school by a foundation that was supposed to help them access education, Khai said.
They lived there with little to no adult supervision. There were many days when they went without food, Khai said.
The girls grew rice to feed themselves, but when they left the building to attend school, it was often stolen by villagers, Zinkowski said.
As Americans with some economic means, the girls’ living situation “was really hard for us to see,” Zinkowski said. “We didn’t have any idea what we were doing” when we started, she said. “But we decided on the spot to help these girls.”
Their initial thought was food security, and McBride and Zinkowski traveled to a supermarket to buy supplies for the girls and a fence to protect the building. “But we didn’t want to play Santa Claus,” Zinkowski said.
McBride and Zinkowski took pictures of the girls, wrote down their names, and promised to stay in touch. They returned the following year and created a documentary about the girls’ situation.
In 2005, Friends of Thai Daughters Inc. became a nonprofit and opened houses in Chang Rai and Chang Mai to provide a nurturing family environment for the girls as they pursued their education.
The sunflower houses are “run by Thai women for Thai women,” McBride said. “This isn’t about westerners parachuting in and telling people how to live.”
Friends of Thai Daughters represents a homegrown effort to help Thai women create sustainable solutions for themselves and their communities, she said.
There were “some discouraging words in the beginning,” Zinkowski said, especially from people working with foundations in Thailand. Thailand has a rigid social system, which the girls from hill tribes are at the very fringe of, she said.
“We were told working in the sweatshops was the best these girls could hope for,” Zinkowski said.
Khai was 11 when she met McBride and Zinkowski. She graduated from high school while living in a sunflower house, and went on to obtain a degree in Thai language from the university in Chang Mai. Khai now lives in Washington, D.C., is fluent in English, Thai, and the dialect of her native tribe, and teaches business.
Faii Banphotphatthana and Seeda Kulao, both 16, grew up together. Many girls in their village marry at the age of 14 or 15 and begin to have children, they said.
Child marriages are common in the tribal region, with some girls marrying as young as 12, McBride said.
Seeda and Faii did not want to get married. They wanted to continue their education, they said. Faii currently lives in the sunflower house run be Mee in Chang Rai. She hopes to complete her education and obtain a nursing degree.
Seeda Kulao lives at the Chang Khong sunflower house. Both intend to return to their village when they complete their education to help others, they said. “I want to go back home and change how they think about things,” Seeda said.
Faii would like to help change the culture in the village “so girls don’t marry so young,” she said. She also wants to help the village develop and support other girls as they pursue their education, Faii said.
Faii, Seeda, Mee, and Khai will give brief presentations during the Sunflower Celebration fundraiser in Damariscotta on Friday, Aug. 4.
Traveling to Lincoln County has been “an amazing experience,” Faii said. “Thank you to everyone for giving us this opportunity.”
“Thank you for giving me and my friend the opportunity to study,” Seeda said. “Today I’m really happy.”
The Sunflower Celebration fundraiser for the Friends of Thai Daughters will take place at Darrows Barn, on the Damariscotta River Association’s Round Top Farm, from 6-9:30 p.m., Friday, Aug. 4. To buy tickets, go to friendsofthaidaughters.org or to the Friday farmers market in Damariscotta.
