Friday, January 17, 2014

2013 - A productive year for GVI Phang Nga


The start of another new year marks the one year anniversary of the GVI Phang Nga Hub. 2013 was a great year for us. We started two new programs and developed partnerships with over 15 key organisations to support both conservation and education initatives in the Phang Nga area. Just one year later and we've already achieved so much thanks to the amazing dedication, hardwork and enthusiasm from all our volunteers - we can't thank you all enough! We are so excited to keep moving the projects forward and support our partners to achieve their objectives over the next year.

Healthcare
The healthcare program started in January 2013 and focuses on working with the Camilian Social Centre for children with disabilities as well as promoting health awareness at local schools. Volunteers helped with rehabilitative therapies including physio and art, teach English and provide much needed social support through a lot of fun and games.


And stretch on the count of three....one....two....
Things started to get really creepy around halloween.
Boo!
There was plenty of time to get festive over Christmas too.


Santa even came to pay us a visit at our Christmas party:


Marine Coastal Conservation
We successfully started our marine coastal conservation program in January 2013. The program aims to support both terrestrial and marine conservation initiaitives in the Phang Nga area. We work closely with two national parks and conduct biodiversity surveys, support sea turle breeding and monitoring programs, and assist the Similan Islands National Park to monitor the impact of tourism on the environment.
Hiking through Thai Muang National Park


We scrubbed a lot of these turtle tanks
All for these little fellas.
We collected over 200 bags of trash on beach clean ups this year! 
We started working here....no, I'm being serious!

I'm still not joking - we conduct tourist behaviour surveys right here....yes, here!
Teaching Children
The teaching children program has had a great first year in Baan Nam Khem. We're now teaching at Baan Nam Khem School, Ban Muang School and the Ban Tam Namchai kindergarden and orphanage.  



TEFL and Teaching English to Communities
The TEFL program has developed a strong partnership with the Non Formal Education Centre in Takuapa. We've taught over 50 students here, as well as providing bespoke English language support to several community initiatives including the Saori Centre in Takuapa.





Happy new year everyone!

UPDATE: To make it easier for you to keep up to date with all the happenings at GVI Phang Nga, we will be fully integrating our blogs into our new website, which will be live by the end of January and thus, we are moving. Blogs will be available on gvi.co.uk and www.gviusa.com. Other live news, updates and goings on are published on Facebook and from our twitter account.

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