The fertile plains of Phrao district, surrounded by the foothills of the Himalayas, are home to both Lanna Thais and a number of ethnic hill tribes living high in the forested hills. The majority of these proud people live far below the poverty line with reported incomes as low as 50 US cents per day.

Providing for a family is difficult enough; providing a good education for one’s children is close to impossible, especially for hill tribe parents who live in tiny villages many miles from the nearest school, with access roads closed during the wet season. Participants in the Chiang Mai University Language Institute’s Cultural Exchange program are hoping to make a difference, in conjunction with the Warm Heart Foundation, a grassroots NGO recently established just outside Phrao town.

The two organisations and their participants are working together to promote equal access to education for all local children, to encourage sustainable development via micro-finance and other programmes and to teach business skills in Phrao, one of the poorest districts in Thailand.

Two dedicated members of CMU’s Cultural Exchange Program are at present prioritizing the most urgent need for the mountain peoples’ school-age children, accommodation. Warm Heart’s compound is near the town’s main schools, a perfect location for a ‘village in the valley’ to house children from far-flung areas during the school year. The foundation is also providing, together with Cultural Exchange program participants, an after-school and Saturday curriculum including English, Thai, Math and Science classes as well as traditional dance and weaving,.

Bob, a highly experienced architect and Dean, an expert in horticulture and landscaping, have committed to costing, designing and supervising the layout of the complex and its new buildings, which will use traditional low-cost materials such as home-made sun-dried straw-bale/mud bricks and bamboo. Plans for the separate dormitories and facilities for boys and girls have been carefully laid out so that a breeze-flow is created in what will become the children’s own space, adjacent to the essential football field and a community building.

The project is a fascinating challenge for Bob, who arrived in Chiang Mai six months ago, and whose career included designs for the ultra-modern Hong Kong Science Park and the City of Dreams casino and hotel complex in Macao. Each eco-friendly building for his Warm Hands project will take six men just one month to complete! As Bob says, ‘Back to Basics!’ Dean, of course, can’t wait to make the entire complex green and beautiful!

A presentation of the project’s zoning plan and details of construction and materials has been made to Warm Heart’s founders, Michael and Evelind, although at present their time is taken up with the small school already in place on the complex and detailed discussion is proving difficult. Funding for the project is crucial, and may pose problems in the present economic climate.

‘Our children are our future’ – especially true in this impoverished area. With good educational facilities, accommodation and training in essential life and business skills for all in eco-friendly, traditional surroundings, the future for this beautiful valley and its diverse inhabitants must surely improve. The CMU Cultural Exchange Program will continue to provide whatever skills are needed to make it happen.

Sitting in a cafe on Huay Kaew Road, sipping hot chocolate and nonchalantly flipping through the Bangkok Post, my gaze was drawn to a poster advertising a one-year Cultural Exchange Program being offered through Chiang Mai University.

I had arrived in Chiang Mai two months earlier full of enthusiasm and a lust for culture and did not want to leave.  It was not my first time in Thailand, nor was it the first time I had fallen in love with the food and the people, but it was my first time in the Lanna region.  This time I was falling in love with the city and the lush mountain ranges.

Signing up for the program was easy; deciding what to sign up to was the difficult part.  Thai culture and language, teaching English to orphans, disadvantaged children, monks, disabled adults and young people, the list was endless.  My head was telling me ‘Thai culture and language’ - my heart was telling me ‘orphans’.

Grudgingly waking up one Saturday at the crack of dawn to get a bus to Phrao, 90 kilometres north of Chiang Mai, I wondered what on earth I was doing.  I'm not a morning person.  I don’t drink coffee.  The bus ride was one and a half hour's journey through lush green landscapes, rice paddies and small villages.

Hopping off the bus at the end of a long dirt road, we were met by two local children with dirty clothes and beaming smiles, offering to carry our bags to the school where they also lived.  Walking up the dusty dirt road surrounded by fruit trees and old wooden houses, bright blue roofs came into view.  We had arrived at the school.

A sea of children of all ages greeted us, waving and smiling widely, full of excitement and anticipation.  My heart leapt, and my tiredness at having to be awake so early disappeared.  A new day and a new experience had dawned.