Posted by Tassanee on 9th November 2007
BaanGerda has existed for seven years and we continue to collect new experiences. Occasionally, problems arise that we have not encountered before and some of these can be difficult to deal with. They require us to examine our approaches and methods to ensure that we make the correct decisions and are fair to everyone in the village.
A week ago, a new boy who was 14 years old was brought to us. He had lived in a close-by orphanage for the last five years, before he was sent away due to bad behavior. The orphanage simply could not control him any more and asked us to take him. As he is HIV-infected we agreed. We never refused a HIV-infected child.
Only one week later we had to send him back. During this time at BaanGerda, he did not accept any of our rules and he left the village and returned as he liked. He refused to communicate and would not answer questions from his house parents. When he started to bring his friends from his old place, who were also very misbehaved, the house parents asked us to intervene. We sent him back to the orphanage, fearing for BaanGerda’s day to day life and the bad example for the rest of the village.
Could we have done better for this boy? We know he will not stand a chance in life when he continues on his present path, but isn’t it more important to protect the standard and discipline of our community?
November 15th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
This was an interesting post for me to read and it shows the difficulties that you face. I have visited Baan Gerda and one of the noticeable things is the positive atmosphere and closeness of the children. I can fully understand that you don’t want to risk this in anyway.
November 23rd, 2007 at 12:05 pm
What happened to this orphan? Does he get ARV still?
November 30th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
the orphonage where he is now has an
ARV program with the local hospital
December 13th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
I think you had to do like you did. Of course, the chance, this boy had, was too short to take it.
But the danger to loose the good ruled and organized life for so much children in a nice atmosphere was too big so that all your children could have loose their good chance for a hopefull life. Therefore you dicided responsable for all your children.
December 17th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Having just been to Baan Gerda with my daughter Jackie. I find this very interesting. Jackie and I couldn’t get over the atmosphere of BaanGerda and the behavior of the children there. In the whole 2 weeks we were there we never saw and fights or squabbling and the atmosphere was so happy. It would be a terrible shame to allow one child’s bad behavior and discontent to spoil this for everyone else. I think he should first get some special help to sort our his problems which are understandable under the circumstances.