We are excited to let you all know that we have almost completed the works on our 4th classroom.
We had some workers drive all the way up to help us build the room. Had some dear friends from Luve Singapore who offered us new mats and a shrine. And then had some of our MPG staff and the driver do the finishing touches and paint everything blue. And it seems that the kids love their new room.

This classroom is much needed as we doubled our number of children since opening Somwang and currently have 57 eager students attending our "school for kids far from home" every day.

While we could not be more excited about this increase in students, this of course means that we need your help now more than ever so that our kids can continue to  learn, play and sing at Somwang.

While we were at it, we decided to just keep going and paint the floor of the outside pavilion so that it will be easier to dust and clean. And though we tried our very best to keep the kids from getting messy, we couldn't help but watch them go at it in end!

Today, on World Refugee Day,  we wanted to take a moment to bring attention to the Burmese refugees that we are currently serving with our school.

There currently are a total of about 140000 Burmese registered refugees living in Thailand across the Burma/Myanmar border. Estimates of non-registered vary from 300.000 - 500.000.

Our Somwang School is located at this border and the people living here are mostly Shan and Palaung who've fled (and are still fleeing) the terrors in Burma, seeking refuge in Thailand, bringing nothing than what they're wearing.  As Thailand is not part of the 1951 Refugee Convention, the country has no domestic legislation recognizing refugee status. Thus considered illegal, yet tolerated, migrants, they are subject to arrest and deportation by Thai military authorities and have no legal rights to employment.

Around the world, the refugee numbers are higher than ever, and many refugee children do not access education and enter harmful, often illegal, work to maintain themselves and their families.
This is exactly what we are trying to change and prevent. The truth is that these people are no different from us and if we deserve an education, so do they.

On this international day of refugee protection, we thus call for your solidarity so that we may continue to support these amazing children and shall continue to see smiles on their faces.

They need your help.
Let's give them the chance to thrive and walk towards brighter futures.
I promise you, it will not be in vain.

Metta.

We wanted to take a moment to thank the guys from Round Table 1 for supporting us yet again!!
Though it was a long day at the Stroossemaart in Luxembourg City, it was a day filled with lots of fun, a great atmosphere and 495kg of oranges.
12 hours later, there was not a single orange left, we had sold 1252 orange juices and thereby broken all previous records!!
This wouldn't have been possible without all of your help and support.
Thanks to all the people who stopped by.
Thanks to the Round Table for having us.
We had a blast!!

And yes, we're done with oranges for now!

The team.