The children’s homes we sponsor in Laos, Philippines and Thailand accommodates and cares for more hundreds of children that are orphaned, sick and poverty stricken, many of whom are refugees fleeing persecution.

Every day we aim to give these children a voice. Everybody knows the value of a good night’s sleep. Tonight however hundreds of children will try to sleep on a hard concrete floor due to a lack of funding for beds.

The Asha Foundation is dedicated to helping vulnerable children by providing shelter, medical care, emotional support and education to those in need but without proper sleep, the daily routine can be disrupted, and the consequences may be long term. We are raising our voice and appealing to the world for a very specific but vital cause which will change these children's lives.

In order to buy bunk beds, mattresses and cabinets for our children, we need to raise $21,000. We simply cannot afford to give this to every child on our own.

That's why we need you.

We need:

• 280 Bunk beds
• 560 Mattresses
• 560 Blankets
• 560 Pillows
• 140 Cabinets

The Impact of Beds

If we can provide every child with a bed, their energy, memory and focus is likely to improve immediately, enabling them to fulfill their potential at school. Some of the children have long term medical issues which are only aggravated by sleeping on the floor and this can also slow down their recovery. Dreaming is processing the events of the day which means there will be an enormous psychological benefit as well. Finally, in the long term, social skills and physical fitness will increase dramatically when sleeping conditions are improved.

Blankets and Pillows

The gift of bedding has a huge emotional benefit. Blankets and pillows let a child know they are cared for, helping them to feel safe and rooted as well as simply being more comfortable.

Cabinets

Many of the children are sharing a room with 6 or 7 others. Receiving their own personal cabinet or drawers for school books, toys and clothes, introduces stability, responsibility and independence. In 2012 we ran this campaign for one of our children’s homes in Thailand.

ARRIX a United States based company and Sean and Asha Brown donated enough money to purchase bunk beds, linens, pillows, and cabinets for all of the children in the home. The impact it has had on the lives of the children has been immeasurable. We are once again campaigning for another 6 children’s homes.

Urgent Needs

As their community is growing, so are the needs. Over the years this children’s home has been struggling to become self-sustaining by starting different projects like an organic farm, weaving center and bakery. However, the foundation is still not independent.

Two of our most urgent needs are water and electricity.

Water

Water has always been the main difficulty since the beginning of the children’s home. The supply we get from the government is very insufficient, unreliable and many times we don't get anything. We have to collect and wait a full day's time before we can distribute to the children twice a day for less than an hour each time. We pump water from the lake but we don't have the capacity to monitor it all the time because it has to be done manually and we don't have a suitable worker for the task. Gasoline is used to fuel the pump and proves to be very expensive so we can only utilize it for the basic needs, and even then it wouldn’t be enough for over 160 persons living in the house. The farm suffers a lot during the hot season which means more money is spent to buy vegetables from the market. There’s also the danger of bushfires during the dry months as we have unused land that is full of dry leaves, we try to always keep clean but leaves keep falling.Neighboring farmers burn dead trees to prepare the land for agriculture and fire can easily spread to our property when we are surrounded by dry leaves and trees.

Power Supply

Like water, the electricity we get from town is very unstable. Furthermore, the home is a bit isolated from the main population and the government is not willing to put posts and connect cables only for the children’s home so we’re using our own cables and posts to get electricity from town which is two kilometers away. For this reason, there is a lot of dispersion in the current and many of our machines get broken. We’re supposed to get 220 watts but we only get 180 watts,if we're lucky, most of the time it is 160 watts or a lot less. The danger is that if an accident occurs, like if a post collapsing during a storm, it would be the sole responsibility of the children’s home and can be very costly and disadvantageous for the foundation. Blackouts happen very frequently which makes it difficult and dangerous for all the residents of the home. The best case scenario is to have our own sustainable power source and be independent from the government supply.

What we need:

1. 50 solar panels with 280 watts at 12,000 baht per unit
2. 2 inverters of 3 kilowatts for the pump at 50,000 baht per unit
3. 2 inverters of 5 kilowatts for household use at 75,000 baht per unit
4. 20 solar lamp posts at 22,000 baht per unit
5. Batteries (we’re not sure how many we need)
6. Funding to construct 2 reservoirs estimated at 50,000 baht each (including labor and material costs)
7. 30 solar panels will be used to power the pump that automatically shuts off when the tanks get full and starts pumping again when water goes down. 20 panels will be allocated for emergency lights, and outlets for the clinic, kitchen and office. The more panels we have, the less dependent we will be from the electric company. An estimated total of 100 solar panels could generate enough energy for all the power needs of the home. The lamp posts are vital to give light to dark areas.

The Benefits:

1. Everybody can have continuous water for everyday use. We plan to build 2 big reservoirs near the lake and up the hill near the meditation center. When the lake dries up during the dry season, there is still a small river in the middle of the lake that continues to bring water from the mountains. A channel will be made for the water to flow from that river to the two reservoirs so we can have unlimited access to water for the whole year.One reservoir will be exclusively for the low land agriculture. The other will be for the orchard up the hill and for the needs of all the residents.
2. The farm will have unlimited access to water which would mean more fresh and organic vegetables for the children.
3. If there is enough water, idle lands will be utilized for agriculture and the many fruit trees which are scattered around that grow very slow due to dryness can finally give fruit for the children.
4. This will minimize the risks of bushfires during the dry season if the surroundings are green. More importantly, a bigger farm could generate some income for and possibly, give more jobs to locals.
5. The home will become a safer place if there will be adequate lights all over the vicinity. No more fears of children falling into holes, snakes and scorpions, and strangers stealing our property.
6. We would still be able to function properly in the event of blackouts. Although the solar panels won’t be enough to give power to the whole house, but they will be very useful for basic needs like food, medical care and communication so we could still manage in times of long electricity shortages.

This is our first solar panel project for the children’s homes if it is a success we can then work at providing the same sustainable energy supply needed at 13 other children’s homes in Laos, Philippines and Thailand.

Clothing:

• Flip flops/slippers
• Undergarments for boys and girls
• Shoes
• Shorts
• Pants
• Socks
• School socks
• School uniforms

School:

• School uniforms
• School supplies

Other:

Many of the children’s homes do not have a high school for the children that stay at the home so we have to send them to boarding schools if they are to receive an education past middle school. One of our biggest need right now is funding for the higher education of the children. We currently do not have the budget for that. Starting the next school year, we will need around 150,000B (about $4,700 USD) on average per month just for education per children’s home. There are currently 6 of homes with this problem.