In the early 1970s, Catholic priest, Father Joe Maier, who lived in the Slaughterhouse neighborhood of Klong Toey in Bangkok, Thailand, started the Human Development Foundation (HDF) to help the children and communities in the slums of Bangkok. With the Thai community’s help, he built the Mercy Centre, a shelter to help street kids and mothers and children living with HIV/AIDS. The Mercy Centre also holds a hospice, four orphanages, a 500-pupil kindergarten, a community meeting place, and a serene haven in the slums with small gardens and playgrounds. In 1973, Father Joe started the first preschool that would be the beginning of the Kindergarten Slum Project (now called the Mercy Kindergartens), of which there are twenty providing education to over 4,100 slum kids, ages three to six. The children receive daily lessons in reading, writing, Thai folklore and history, song, dance, sports, and religious celebrations. The Mercy Kindergartens also provide meals and healthcare check-ups throughout the year, since almost 25 percent of new students suffer from some degree of malnourishment.

With the idea that communities should participate in their own success, families help construct, maintain, and staff the schools as well as pay ten baht (approximately twenty-five cents) per school day if they can. The children receive a nutritious lunch with milk, fruit, and protein snacks every school day.

By educating the children at such a young age, children that wouldn’t normally become educated are now graduating. There are now thirty Mercy Schools, making it the largest of its kind in Thailand. Over 35,000 children have graduated from HDF’s schools and nearly 100 percent of the graduating students continue their education.

I was fortunate to teach at the Kindergarten in Block 12 of Klong Toey. Every day when I would ride up sitting sidesaddle on the back of the motorbike taxi, the children would run to the gate of the school screaming my name, “Khun Ah-man-da!” They would wait until I came in to read to them or teach them some new English words. After that, we would run and play on the cement playground until lunchtime, then naptime would arrive and I would walk away until the next beautiful day with these happy children. I will always recall their favorite line from one of the many books that I read to them, “I like milk,” since milk came in a bag as a part of their afternoon snack.