Pattaya Personality – Khun Gio – Take Care Kids Thailand
By Kevin Cain
A recent visitor to the Pattaya Trader at Chaiyapruek Towers was Khun Gio from the Take Care Kids Foundation Thailand. Khun Gio had been invited to pop in to see us so that he could explain exactly what his foundation does and how it benefits local abused children in Pattaya. This was especially timely as Take Care Kids was a recent beneficiary of 74,000 baht from the excellent Souled Out bash last month at the Robin Hood Bar an event that The Pattaya Trader was very happy to support. Khun Gio was also eager to relate that this amount of money would be enough to keep the foundation operating for around three months, and the real beneficiaries of course would be the children they care for.
Pictured are Eva and Khun Gio with the kids at Take Care Kids.
Although Khun Gio has been living in Pattaya for over fifteen years, the foundation was founded in 2010. Originally a media journalist in his native Italy, it was never on his mind to open a shelter for abused and deprived children in Thailand, but things took their own direction. After meeting Father Ray and helping out with the annual rice collection as Khun Gio himself says “It all started from just 1 kilo of rice”. For not being a person who could sit idly by as a man of action he felt he had to help in whatever way he could and so in 2013 after fulfilling all the legal Thai requirements, Take Care Kids Thailand officially opened as a shelter for children. As a shelter, Take Care Kids is only allowed to take children from two and a half years of age and upwards, presently the average age at the shelter is 6 years old.
Mostly these children are sent to him from “Child/Women protection” and have often been the victims of sexual or physical abuse.
The individual stories of the children are a little harrowing to relate, but Take Care Kids act as a foster family, making sure the children are fed, have shelter, are protected and above all are registered for school. Often it is hard to tell relatives how important it is for children to be educated and after looking after these children and giving them the full attention of all the team at Take Care Kids the eventual aim is to return the children to a family member that is capable of looking after them. However, you can imagine the nightmare scenario of tracing distant relatives that could be anywhere in the Kingdom. And if they don’t manage to find family and the mother is still incapable of looking after her kids, then the children are sent to state foster homes when they are ready to do so. .
However before this can happen and they are able to integrate with other children Khun Gio and his staff have to give specialist care and look after the welfare of their charges morning, noon and night. Through their specialist experience they understand the children’s problems completely and work at providing loving care as well as the basics to survive.
The Take Care Kids Thailand shelter makes no distinction as to the colour or creed the children are and in fact religion is not high on the agenda for the shelter, the absolute priority being the children and the care needed to keep them happy and educated. For even if they stay just a couple of years at the shelter the hope is that this period will set them on the road to a happy, normal life and take them away from abusive situations and memories.
Take Care Kids complies rigorously with all the Thai Laws necessary for it to be officially classified as a foundation but as such it relies completely on donations from well wishers, Khun Gio does not get any remuneration for his dedication and hard work. He cites his “salary” as being the reward of seeing former shelter kids come back to visit at Christmas for the annual party.
So how can you possibly help Khun Gio and all the children under his care ? The first step is to go on the foundation’s FaceBook page and like Take Care Kids Onlus. ,You can then take a look to see what the foundation is all about and you can also view regular updates of the current projects that they are involved in. Or if you really want to get involved and do something proactive why not arrange your own charity event and send the donations to help these unfortunate children who have ended up in a situation they had nothing to do with creating?
Khun Gio is an intense ………………..man………………….as well as Italian……………..german………………….meticulous accounts for every baht and strives to do the best that he and his team can to care for each and every one of their wards. He provides the children with another chance in life and so richly deserves our Pattaya Personality recognition for this month.
Have a think about what you may be able to do to help, it does not have to be as grand as a large Soul Event. Why not host a coffee morning, or a charity walk ? It really does not matter how much you raise, as every baht will help the children have a second chance in life.
You can contact Khun Gio at [email protected] or 085 248 0194.