St Pat’s pupils volunteer in Thailand
It was a summer holiday like no other – teaching English in Thailand.
In mid-January, eight students from St Patrick’s College in Wellington boarded an early morning flight to Thailand, ready to spend the rest of their summer holidays at the Marist Mission school in Ranong.
In the hot, bustling city, roughly the size of Palmerston North, the Wellington teens took up teaching English to Burmese students.
Year 13 students Joshua Niko, Benjamin Prendergast, Sam Aldridge, Eric Kong, Jacob Franklin, William Ross and Antonio De Gregorio, along with year 12 Manaaki White, spent two weeks in the city, working with locals on their language skills.
What they found was eye-opening. They discovered the tension between the Burmese people and the Thai government.
Burmese people – including students – would have to carry their passports with them in case they were stopped by Thai officers. Ranong sits on the border of Thailand and Mynmar and is a point where people cross illegally into Thailand.
Prendergast said the students they taught were the privileged ones, able to attend school instead of working to support their families.
But among that, the Wellington students also discovered a different side of life.
‘‘Over there when the bell rang, they would be excited to go back to class,’’ Aldridge said.
One student, Wine Min Htet, would travel two hours to home after school, spend half an hour eating dinner, before starting a sixhour shift in a rubber plantation.
‘‘That shows me how easy my life is compared to them, yet he’s still so happy,’’ Prendergast said.
Teacher Maurice Atkinson helped organise the trip. He and his wife had lived in Thailand for two years, both of them teaching, and knew the impact seeing life there could have on the St Patrick’s students.
‘‘I thought it would be a really good idea to give New Zealand teenagers an experience of what life was like for teenagers in a different part of the world.’’
Now that they’re back at school, the teenagers are determined to advocate for the Burmese students they met on their trip, whether that’s sponsoring the costs of schooling and transport for one student ($20 a month) or fundraising to bring in extra teachers.