UNOH Bangkok

UNOH Chapters: Where we live and serve Christ: UNOH Bangkok

UNOH Bangkok started in 2002. The chapter lives and serves Jesus in three neighbourhoods in the Klong Toey slum – the largest slum in Bangkok. The neighbourhoods are 70 Rye, Rong Gow and Loch 4, 5& 6. The UNOH workers in Bangkok are:

Ash and Anji Barker

Ash and Anji Barker with their children - Amy aged 12 and Aiden aged 5

Rod Sheard

Rod Sheard

Chris and Jodie MacCartney and their children - Grace aged 5 and Ruby aged 3

Chris and Jodie MacCartney and their children - Grace aged 5 and Ruby aged 3

Anji Barker is the UNOH Bangkok chapter leader.

UNOH workers serve in Bangkok in partnerships. These include:

Klong Toey Community Centre

This is part of the Church Of Christ in Thailand and was built on a former rubbish tip. It is used for many purposes:

  • During the day it is a Christian Montessori preschool with 60 students
  • In the afternoon it becomes a youth centre with around 200 people coming through it each day. The programs there include
  • sports programs
  • swimming classes
  • football
  • youth groups
  • music lessons
  • camps
  • English classes
  • computer classes.
  • The centre is also home to a number of the micro-enterprise development programs that employ up to 60 men and women
  • Klong Toey Handicrafts
  • Lok 6 Coffee Shop,.
  • UNOH workers run programs out of the community centre
  • a home visiting program
  • an emergency medical program
  • a jail visitation program.

Ta Rua Church

This was started by Ajarn Suwat, after he came to the Lord from a background of drug addiction and gang involvement. God gave Suwat a vision to go back to the community he was from and plant a church within it. The church and it’s two church plants are linked with sister churches in Australia. These partnership have enabled the Ta Rua church to buy it’s own building within the slum and to be freed up to pour their energy into the community.

There is an exciting leadership team of young and passionate new Christians who lead the work within the neighbourhood. The church has a membership of around 40 people all struggling together with life’s issues.

Suwat has a vision for reaching the other nine of the 12 of Klong Toey’s main neighbourhoods for Christ.

The churches’ ministries to the wider slum include:

  • Sports
  • Youth camps
  • Education programs
  • Relief programs.

Sister church teams regularly come from Australia to help the church-run school holiday programs for kids in the community and to support the church in music and other forms of worship.

Klong Toey Handi-Crafts

This is one of a number of enterprises supported by the UNOH team to help create dignified employment opportunities for the poor in the slum. It is based on fair-trade principles with all the profits going back to the women and men in the slum. At its busy time it employs around 60 men and women. People are paid double the minimum wage and work is flexible so women can keep their children with them. Fashionable jewellery ,bags and cards are made in the slum and sold by volunteers in Australia, England, the US, Thailand and Japan. In the last financial year the turn-over for Klong Toey handicrafts was 5.5 million baht; this is thanks largely to the hard work of the volunteers in Australia, especially Liz Maher (contact: handicrafts@allyearround.com.au   ph: 0423 575 506).

Helping Hands

These are micro-development enterprises, helping create business opportunities for the poor. Currently there are:

  • A Thai cooking school
  • A coffee shop
  • A take away food and catering service
  • A bakery program (currently under development).

All the Helping Hands Projects run on fair-trade principles and with fair working conditions, with all profits going to the poor.

Rom Gow Community Centre

This is a small community centre in the heart of Rom Gow neighbourhood of Klong Toey. The MacCartney’s move to this neighbourhood in September 2008, has been preceded by the local neighbourhood leadership inviting educational projects to be based there. The projects include:

  • English classes
  • Children programs
  • Youth programs.
  • Klong Prem Prison Visitation

Klong Prem Prison, better known as ‘Bangkok Hilton’, houses many from the Klong Toey slum community. In most cases those from the neighbourhood serving their time in prison do so without the support of loved ones. By providing a transport service to and from the prison each week, family members are better able to support those in prison.

There is also a visitation program to the prison hospital to provide care and support for prisoners with health issues.

Burma-Hope Foundation

Starting in Melbourne in 1998 as a partnership between UNOH workers and Burmese refugee neighbours, the B-HF has provided relief, eduction and political action in Australia, Burma and Thailand. In Bangkok, in Burma, and in refugee camps on the Thai Burma border, this includes:

  • Supporting and advocating for refugee applications to a third country
  • Welfare for families of political prisoners
  • Working with the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB) and Dr Cynthia’s clinic in partnerships around cyclone Nargis relief effort
  • (Soon to start) micro-enterprise ‘Free Burma Handi-crafts’.

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