header-photo

Tadum

One of our girls who lived at Sarnelli House for more than 10 years has now begun to live an independent life in Nongkhai.  Now she is 21 years old  and she has been living  in and around Nongkhai for about 3 years. After adjusting to life outside the protected environment of Sarnelli House and being monitored and assisted by the Outreach Program she seems to have finally settled into her life. She completed a traditional Thai massage course through the Thailand Blind Association and she has been working intermittently since.  With some seed funding from Star of the Sea Parish, Australia she and her boyfriend who is also blind have set up shop. They have 2 massage beds and are opened every day from 7am – 8pm and charge 120 baht/ hour for a traditional Thai massage. They live in the back of the shop and together try and make ends meet.   With advertisement in Thai and English they hope to attract some tourists as well to their shop. While neither speak much English they are able to say the price and work out how long the massage is wanted.  To just cover the rent, electricity and cost of drinking water they have to have at least one client a day. Hopefully as they become more well known the clients will continue to become regulars. The pitfalls of two blind people with no formal education trying to make a living in Nongkhai are many, but hopefully with the support of the Outreach Program and the desire for independence and normality these two will be a success and live their lives as they want to.