What’s Up at Wildflower Home

June - July 2008

July 7 we received news that we had been approved as a Thai Foundation.  After many months of work on this, the Board of Directors celebrated with a nice meal (followed by yet another meeting.)
The past five months we have had a baby boom with the birth eight infants. They have been a great group of babies with a great group of moms. Wildflower Home is fuller than ever.
July 2 marked the completion of our new daycare facility and the first day of classes for our 2 – 4 year olds onsite.
Volunteer Bill Zawadski and Wildflower Home’s Coordinator of Children’s Concerns, Pun Busai, worked to prepare activities for the children.
July 6 and 10 Thai PBS featured Wildflower Home in an hour long documentary. We had a wonderful response from the public, both with volunteers and donors. We are happy to have had a huge influx of both Thai and Foreign volunteers recently.
A great volunteer, Ruay, came on the weekend of July 19 and 20 to teach about various organic gardening techniques. We all learned something from her.
July 14 was the last day of volunteers Kate (middle) and Sandro (Far Right). Kate was with us for over six months. She was the first to develop the garden on our new land. Sandro was here for almost two months helping with the computers and doing various small carpentry jobs. Friends, Ashley, Jesse and Rob also helped out.
July 21 Lauren arrived to help with carpentry and construction. She and Jaye, a long term volunteer, are busy upgrading the women’s closets.
Aaron and one of our resident women, Bun Pen, work to clear the area for the playground. Aaron With a donation from his mom’s endowment, he promises to have a great playground in place before his volunteer term is complete.
Volunteer Christina Andersen taught the women flower arranging on July 29.
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March 29 was a big day for us. It marked the final move of Wildflower Home into our own facility. One pickup truck load at a time our belongings moved from the facility we had been renting from a Diocesan Research and Training Center for Cultural-Religio Communities to the land just adjacent to it that we are buying and developing as our permanent home.
From October 2007 to present so much work has been done to develop the facilities that we are currently occupying. The women themselves worked so hard to help our move happen. The women laid rebar for the concrete floors in the dining room, kitchen and office areas.
After the rebar was laid they helped put in the floors also.
Two of the women learned some general principles about electrical work.
The women have a vision for a meditation garden and are digging a small reflection pond with hoes and shovels.
These are the current facilities that we occupy: A permanent six bedroom building is able to house around twelve women and their children.
A temporary office and dining room made from all natural materials has been the coolest rooms on the property during the hot season.
A temporary kitchen serves our needs well at this time.
A small two bedroom house allows our two women staff members and their children to live on site also.
A Bamboo structure houses our computers and a small classroom for the women.
In the months of March and April school is out for the children, and volunteers have been very helpful taking care of them in our small nursery.
With the consistent effort of Kate, a long term volunteer, and so many of the women, our garden is flourishing.
The tiny ½ inch fish that we released last September into our pond are about the size of your hand now. And check out the snazzy fence that our women helped put around the pond.
Since January we have said goodbye to seven women and have welcomed eight new women into Wildflower Home. In April we had two beautiful babies born to two of the resident women.
A big thank you goes to some of our big donors: Maryknoll Society donated $40,000.00 US for operating costs. Scarboro Lay Missions donated $10,000.00 Canadian for the construction of the women's residence. The British Community of Thailand Friends for the Needy gave us 142,000 Baht for the purchase of closets and beds. The Jesuit Community in Thailand gave another 50,000 Baht donation upon the occasion of our open house party. Many, many individuals give so generously both cash and material items.   Please know how grateful all of us at Wildflower Home are!

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Previous Events

Our first resident home for two or three women and their children is coming up. (For about $2000 you can help sponsor one home.)
The rice that the women planted in August was harvested in late November.
We have had some fantastic volunteers helping at Wildflower Home. (You, too, can think about volunteering full time or part time! We need all types at this time!) Shanya teaches computer.
Kate is interested in subsistence farming.
Leilani is intent on the having the women speak English before she leaves.
Spencer helps with building construction.
Kim, an EXPAT in ChiangMai, is helping part time with building construction.
We have two beautiful new babies at Wildflower Home, Nana and Pi.
We celebrated Loi Kratong, a traditional festival of lights. The women made wishes and released their lanterns into the air.
Leilani, a former international school principal and current volunteer, has helped our women set up a learning classroom for the Toddlers under three years old. One of our 18 year-old women started a new job at an organic food restaurant where she practices her English that she learned while at Wildflower Home.
September 15, 2007 marked the day of Wildflower Home's Groundbreaking Ceremony. The fifteen women, fourteen children and staff of Wildflower Home celebrated as many friends ascended on our muddy property at 9:59 to share in the joy we feel that we will be able to begin putting up simple shelters for the women as soon as the end of September.
Words of welcome were extended by the staff and a very moving speech was given by Wildflower Home's Foundation President, Khun Supaporn Yanasar, whereby she made an analogy of the seeds we plant with women to the many seeds we have been and will be planting on the land as it is developed. “We will tend to these seeds with care and watch them as they grow, flower, and bear fruit.” A corner pole was planted firmly in the ground with a bunch of coconuts, sugarcane, and bananas tied to it as a part of the traditional groundbreaking ceremony in this part of the country. It was blessed by Reverend Niphot Thianwihan, also a member of Wildflower Home's Board of directors. He prayed that Wildflower Home be a place of hospitality, love, peace, safety, and many blessings to its residents. Finally, fish were released by Khun Supaporn, Elizabeth Thaibinh, Wildflower Home's Director, and the children of Wildflower Home into the large pond on Wildflower Home's property.
Afterwards everyone gathered for a very delicious meal that the women had prepared

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Land Development

Rationale

After an external evaluation was conducted in November 2006 Wildflower Home became increasingly aware of the fact that we could better serve our target population of women, mostly from rural agricultural communities, by taking the project to a more rural area. February 2007 Wildflower Home entered an agreement to purchase seven rai of land over six years. Our new piece of property, seven kilometers outside of Chiang Mai, allows us to practice and teach sustainable development in addition to the many other services and courses we offer our women.

How does Wildflower Home intend to achieve self-sustainable living?

As our women are already accustomed to living simply, we will promote this practice as an organization also. Staff and residents alike are growing in our awareness of natural resources and how we can utilize them to help meet our daily needs. We are making an effort to incorporate organic techniques for agriculture by the use of such methodologies as having a nursery, composting, and planting a variety of plants and trees that grow well together. We will seek to be able to provide for a majority of our own food needs through gardening, keeping live stock, having fish ponds, and also learning about herbal medicines. Our building materials also will make use of natural resources as we venture to put up earthen, bamboo and wooden houses that the women can comfortably live in. Eventually we hope to be able to offer services to the community by selling produce & homemade products, allowing the women to earn an income through the skills they learn in vocational training, as well as by opening our nursery to the community. Someday we hope to be able to open our center to the wider community as a center of creativity, learning, meditation and healing for all people, especially women.

Living Simply

We are inspired by the words of the Reverend Horace Dammers, ‘Live simply so that all may simply live.’ Living in community with women who have had so little in their lives brings relevance to this quote. Most of women at Ban Dok Mai Pa are from rural regions of Northern Thailand. During the early stages of life they have been exposed to nature and agriculture. However, being aware of nature and incorporating a lifestyle in harmony with nature is a learning process for all of us that does not necessarily come naturally after being exposed to so much globalization and western culture. We have to learn to cultivate and receive gifts offered abundantly from Mother Earth without harming or polluting our environment. During the time of their stay, each woman has opportunities to experience different ways of working in agricultural realities, such as organic farming, composting techniques, greenhouses, etc. They can raise their own livestock for food and use natural resources for healing such as herbal medicine.

Living simply is one way to achieve our goal. Humans don't need much money to live on, neither does possessing a lot of material things make one happy. The value and dignity of one’s well being cannot be bought by money. We tend to be very flexible in this way when we can adapt to almost any situation. And that means Freedom.

Our Seven Rai

February 2007, The land is overgrown with weeds.
March 2007 - Clearing the land.
April 2007 Digging the pond and filling in land
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April 2007 – present planting trees and vegetabe garden
July 2007 Our first house
August 2007 Planting Rice on our land
September 2007 Ground breaking

Future Site Plan

Phases of development

- Phase I

We project to build houses for 12 women and 4 volunteers and staff by the end of 2007

- Phase II

Kitchen and Educational and Vocational buildings and resident housing for 6 new women by the end of 2008

- Phase III

Meditation hall and office, complete staff and volunteer houses by the end of 2009.

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