Twenty six young toddlers recently attended their graduation ceremony at Father Ray Day Care Center. They are now old enough to enter kindergarten classes at their local school and not only did they receive their graduation certificates, the were also presented with gifts and an envelope containing cash.
Each morning around fifty young children arrive at the Day Care Center. First thing they do is have breakfast as there are many families who will have no food at home.
They after singing the national anthem and raising the flag of Thailand they spend the day learning, mostly through play.
Apart from breakfast the Center also provides lunch, and the cook also makes sure the kids get a big dose of healthy vitamin C as she squeezes the oranges herself.
All this costs just twenty Baht each day, and a percentage of that twenty Baht is saved and presented back to the children at the graduation ceremony.
The children all arrived at the graduation ceremony in their new school uniforms. Buying shirts or blouses, skirts and shorts, socks, underwear, shoes and a sports kit, any parent will agree can become quite expensive. The money they receive back, that small percentage of all the twenty Bahts, covers the cost of the uniforms, meaning the parents are not struggling to find money they don’t really have.