The R2G Annual Report 2013 is now available but here’s a quick view of the highlights from last year.

In 2013, Room to Grow provided services to 1,513 children in 20 programs which feed, house and/or educate un-accompanied minors.

We worked with 49 volunteers over the course of the year, including partnering with World Education, to hand over nutrition programs, and with Wide Horizons school to implement new projects

Our co-founder, Jennifer Jones, received the Bakken Award from Medtronic Philanthropy for her work with Room to Grow as a person living with Type One Diabetes and an insulin pump.

Our programs enabled 175 Burmese migrant and refugee children to attend Thai schools, working towards a sustainable future for them in Thailand.

300 young women received pads, enabling them to attend school in comfort and with dignity, focusing on their education.

Our staff distributed over 500 blankets, more than 3,100 pairs of underwear and over 625 pairs of flip-flops.

The growing young minds and stomachs of Mae Sot consumed more than 19,000 kilograms of rice, and almost 19,000 eggs!

Our projects were managed by Myat Nobel Than in the field this year, who will unfortunately be leaving the field for the United States in early 2014. Her sister is being trained to continue on her excellent work.

We are looking forward to more interesting work in 2014. It will be interesting to see how the area around Mae Sot and Burma continue to develop and change as the political situation also changes. We will be continuing to deepen some of our existing partnerships, and to develop new partnerships. It will be an exciting year!

The R2G Annual Report 2012 is now available but here’s a quick view of the highlights from last year.
 

In 2012, Room to Grow provided services to 1,780 children in 15 primary programs and helped over 650 children in five additional dormitories on a more limited basis.

We expanded our scholarship program and supported 33 children’s attendance in Thai schools this year. Our basic feeding program also expanded, with Room to Grow staff delivering over 53,300 kilograms of rice, 2,525 kilograms of yellow lentils and almost 54,400 eggs over the year. More than a thousand children received a year’s supply of underwear in 2013 and 270 girls received a three month’s supply of sanitary napkins.

Our lunch program expanded most dramatically this year. In twelve months, cooks served up more than 350,000 breakfasts, lunches and dinners to children in 10 different locations.

The mushroom growing program expanded this year and 13 programs participated, growing over 4,700kg of mushrooms between December 2011 and December 2012. Children ate over 60 per cent of the mushrooms and generated over $2,600CDN in revenue from the sale of mushrooms. Income funded better nutrition programs and was used in two programs to buy more mushroom spore bags.

After several years of support to Social Action for Women’s scholarship program, we were able to expand our assistance to their work sheltering children who are orphaned and abandoned.

Working together with individual donors, local groups and international charities, we were able to coordinate support for two children with special needs living in the Safehouse, to enable support for them to return to educational programs and improve the quality of their daily lives.

Room to Grow staff responded to two emergencies in 2012, sending support for the rebuilding and resupply of the nursery building in Umphium Mai Refugee camp following a large fire in April. In December, a fire destroyed the homes of migrant workers on the outskirts of Mae Sot, and Room to Grow responded with emergency supplies for many of the students affected.

Joanna Flint was Room to Grow’s Program Coordinator for 2012. Myat Nobel Than and Thae Thae Khoo formed the field staff for the year. They were joined by Sandra Jones for several months at the beginning of 2012 and Jennifer Jones at the end of the year.