Kham Siri Article from Ang Kaew Newspaper Written on August 10, 2007, by admin.
5 August 2007
Translated by Stefan Mickel
Stefan Mickel, born in Germany has surprised me when I first met him. He spoke Thai rather fluent, even though he has a slight accent. Stefan who has his base in London lives here together with his wife and his son for 3.5 years. When they came here, they first studied Thai at a language school and practiced speaking Thai with their neighbors mainly in the community around Wat Buak Daem, where they lived.
Stefan’s trademark of a smile and building friendships causes the neighbors not to be scared to speak with a foreigner and they are treated like one of them. After a year of bonding there, they felt established in their neighborhood. They started a place that receives children and youth and they all together call it “youth club”. They have different activities there all aiming to learn English. The reason for this is to help and support the community. Stefan feels that education in Thailand is very expensive; therefore many children miss out on education. Being equipped with the ability to speak English is very important nowadays. This is the one thing he is able to give to the children. They have activities 3 times a week, Tuesdays, Thursdays in the evening where they study the Bible, English and German. On Saturdays they mainly have activities like sports, drawing or arts.
Studying and teaching of Stefan is not a tight learning by heart method or practice but he uses a method of listening and telling a story. This causes the children to feel they have fun and learn vocabulary at the same time in an easy way. For the older kids, Stefan will speak with them in English in order to lower the anxiety level of speaking in a foreign language. Because when they are bold to speak, they will soon find out here they still make mistake and can develop skills to get better.
Stefan never forces kids to study. Every kid can decide for themselves. They want to study, they can study. They want to play, they can play. Stefan believes that all of the kids have freedom to decide for themselves what they want. It will cause them to feel more relaxed.
When Stefan talks to the children who came for the first time, they are mostly likely shy, but when they join in activities or listen to a story, they start to feel more relaxed and want to participate with all the activities as well. Right from the start the club had about 10 members and more. When the numbers increased, the burden for Stefan increases too. The need for more equipment, which is necessary increases. Fortunately he has received some financial support from friends from abroad. He also has been given some games and books which are useful for the children’s development.
When I asked Stefan if he sometimes feels tired, he certainly says that he feels tired. He’d like to have an assistant but he doesn’t have enough money to employ one. Nevertheless he sometimes has a friend from abroad coming here temporarily to help with the teaching and activities with the children. But even so, in the evening he is tired. Stefan and his wife strongly aim for giving it their best shot. But Stefan is certainly very happy and satisfied that he is doing something useful for the community. He is happy that the parents of the children have told him that they progress very well in their language skills. In the future, Stefan has the concept plan of setting up a counseling centre for young people and wants to manage to be able to give credits at low interest rates, which would certainly help the community.
Stefan says the community development is very important. He wants the people in this community to become very strong in order for them to become leaders in their own community, and therefore to continue to develop the community themselves. He just wants to be a small part in it. One part which helps the community to develop in their own pace.
This way of thought makes me think he is doing it right. It is also not important what the children’s’ belief system is or if they practice the same religion, the only thing they have is common is a united heart…….
Volunteers sacrifice themselves as part of the community…..
Even so it looks as if they only work with a small group within the community; one can compare it with a light of a candle that maybe can be extinguished anytime. But this small light, this candle is able to send/bring light and to lead the way in the community in their own pace in the future- that’s for sure.
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Wir sind sehr dankbar für die segensreiche Arbeit von Euch. Gott segne Euch und Euere Betreuten!
Wir grüßen Euch aus Worms in Germany
Erika und Helmut Steinmetz