Basic Aid

First Actions
Blood Donations
Interpreting Services for Authorities and Police
Supply of Food and Aid Goods to the Refugee Camps

Start up Funding
In the first few days after the tsunami, the need for immediate aid for the victims was the most urgent. Many had lost their homes and livelihoods, besides their loved ones. Whoever was unable find shelter with friends or relatives was sent to the emergency shelters which consisted of school gyms, council halls or tents. There, they were supplied with food and donated clothing, but had no other means since they were unable to save anything but themselves and the clothes on their backs. Not even basic items such as hygiene articles and toiletries, medication, money to phone friends or relatives in other provinces, bus tickets or whatever else they required in their daily lives. Often, not even the money to bury dead relatives was available.
There were (and still are) extreme cases of hardship; e.g. a father, suffering from a kidney disease, who lost his wife and had to take care of his 2 young children, who should have gone to a special clinic in Bangkok, but had neither the money nor time to do that. Or the grandmother with her bedridden husband, who lost her son and daughter-in-law but found her 4 month old grandchild alive, riddled with mosquito bites, in the bushes, 2 days after the catastrophe. This list could be continued indefinitely, but the need has become the rule. We attempt to ease these cases of hardship through direct financial or material support.

Medical Aid
Many of the flood victims were badly injured and are in need of long term medical treatment which they cannot afford. In these cases, we are either looking for sponsors, or we finance this from project funds.

Construction of Houses
In cases of extreme hardship, we are supporting fishermen and sea gypsies by building them houses, or at least financing the building material. This is only possible in conjunction with single sponsors or groups of sponsors and only takes place in extreme cases. Considering the very high number of homeless people, we can only intervene in such cases.

Achieved so far:
First, we donated blood together with guests, staff and families and also delivered supplies and food to emergency shelters, while providing translation services in the camps and staging areas for corpses.
We took on over 40 orphans and financed the school costs for about six weeks.
We assisted one family in Takua Pa who had lost their only family breadwinner until we found a sponsor for them.
We supported seven fishing families in Phuket during the repair of their boats.

We bought tools for two boat builders so that they were able to return to work despite their workshops being obliterated.
We paid for the hospital and travel expenses to Bangkok for a father of two who was in great need of treatment for his kidney disease.
We assisted a pick-up truck full of drinking water to a group of military engineers who had been working without water in the scorching heat for most of the day.
We assisted about 70 fishermen (although the number changes every week) for whom we had acquired new boats with the first tank of gasoline, as well as ice for their catch, in order to get them started.