It is with sadness that the Father Ray Foundation announces the death of Khun Aurora Sribuapan, co-founder and former Head Teacher at the Pattaya Redemptorist School for the Blind.
Khun Aurora passed away on the morning of Sunday 19th May. She will be known to many ex-pats who have visited and raised funds for the school which is located on soi 16 Naklua.
It was a chance meeting in the mid 1980’s with Father Ray Brennan that a school for blind and visually impaired children was opened. She was a social worker, and he had been given a building on Pattaya Klang and he didn’t know what to do with it so they opened a school.
A few years later a purpose built school was built in Naklua and since opening more than five hundred and fifty blind and visually impaired students have been welcomed and have received and education.
There are several such schools for blind children around the country, but what makes the Pattaya school unique is that it accepts students who have multi disabilities; apart from being blind they may also have autism, cerebral palsy and mobility and learning disabilities.
Khun Aurora retired in 2016 at the age of 83. During the thirty plus years she was in Pattaya she dedicated her life to the children who, like her, were without sight. She encouraged parents to let their child attend school and she encouraged her students to think about an independent future for themselves.