Sop Moei Nursery School

The Sop Moei Nursery School is located in the Mae Sam Lap district in the north-west of Thailand close to the Burmese border.

The Sop Moei village is mostly comprised of people from the minority Karen tribe. These villagers escaped to this area from great political unrest and ethnic-based conflicts in Myanmar.

Isolated on the mountains, the village is very difficult to access by road and subsequently river transport is heavily relied upon.Communication in the area is also severely hampered due to poor infrastructure and lack of telecommunications or electricity.

Prior to the new school being built, the nursery children were being taught in a tiny back room in the Sop Moei Primary School which was clearly not ideal nor suitable for over 30 students.

With the help of the community, a one-storey building with 2 rooms was built (one room for classes and the other for the teacher’s sleeping area). Both rooms were equipped with the necessary school furniture.

Two toilets were built in a separate building which greatly improved the hygiene standards for the school. Probably most excitingly, a water purification plant was donated by the wonderful SkyJuice Foundation and installed by Child's Dream providing very much-needed clean water to the community.

As with all other school built in Thailand, the Thai Government will oversee the daily running of the school.

A playground is yet to be built for the school but hopefully will be funded shortly.

As with all Child’s Dreams projects, the community is strongly encouraged to participate in construction.

In the case of Sop Moei, the villagers had contributed labour, wood, sand, stones and rocks for the construction. A professional construction team headed by a foreman then managed the actual construction work. All required materials were sourced and transported from Mae Sariang district in the Mae Hon Son Province.

Child’s Dream successfully negotiated that the local government help provide financial assistance for the transportation cost of material as due to the remote location of the village the costs are much higher than comparable projects in Thailand.

Construction of the Sop Moei Nursery school began in June 2010 and was completed by October 2010.

Total construction costs were approximately 3% below budget in the local currency (THB). However, a significantly weaker USD/THB exchange rate resulted in a budget overrun of approximately 5% as you can see below.

Sustainability: Sustainability of the school’s activities is guaranteed by close cooperation with the government, which will cover the nursery teacher salary as well as some of the ongoing costs. Child’s Dream will carry out follow-up visits for monitoring purposes and to check on needed renovations.

The Sop Moei village is roughly 4 hours drive by car from Chiang Mai in Thailand. Thai airways offer several flights daily from Bangkok to Chang Mai.

Alternatively you can access the village also by boat from Chiang Mai along the beautiful Salaween river which takes usually around 2 hours.

If you would like help arranging a visit we would be more than happy to organize it for you.

Dad visited the Sop Moei nursery school in November 2010 to offiically open the new classrooms.

Given it was the day after Andrew's anniversary together with the opening of our first nursery school, it was evidently a truly special and emotional day.

See some pictures below from the opening.