Projects

    1. Prison Project: In preventing the HIV-virus from spreading, reaching out to prisons is an essential thing to do. Study has shown that HIV presents a major challenge to prison populations worldwide. The prisons in Thailand, as elsewhere, house a disproportionate number of individuals of low economic and educational status. This puts them statistically at risk of both incarceration and HIV. Apart from health care concerns, the emotional well-being of prisoners is poor; overcrowded cells, lack of stimulation combined with depression. The families of prisoners are often in need too, having lost the breadwinner. Over the past 13 years, Siam-Care has been teaching and counselling inmates in the areas of safe sex and sexual transmitted diseases. This project, which first started in the Klong Prem prison in Bangkok, has grown over the years and now consists of 9 different prisons/correctional institutions.
    2. Educational Sponsorship Project Siam-Care’s goal is to give future to children and their families, and to have a positive impact on the underprivileged. One of the most concrete ways of doing this, is through Siam-Care’s educational sponsorship program. In the last 23 years hundreds of children were able to finish their education due to Siam-Care’s support. By enabling children of disadvantaged families to go to school, we give them an opportunity to escape the wheel of poverty. Every year around 200 children received support; the vast majority comes from families that have been affected by HIV/Aids. Some children in Siam-Care’s educational sponsorship program are HIV-positive themselves; others have been orphaned by HIV/Aids and hence have no parents to pay for their education. When children finish their education, they have a much greater chance of finding a job. Siam-Care’s goal is to allow children to study until at least the third grade of high school.
    3. Family Care Program: In all Siam-Care does, we focus on creating independency. For as families who can look after themselves, have a great sense of dignity. By helping families to develop psychosocially, physically, financially and spiritually, we help them take care of themselves. In some cases, the growth is slow and families need help for years. But in every case, we want to see development and growth. Most families in our program, have children who are part of Siam-Care’s educational program as well. Parents oftentimes would rather see their children work instead of going to school, so they can help support the family financially. Therefore, Siam-Care helps families with studying children to make ends meet, as long as their children are in school. Families are thoroughly screened before entering our program, to ensure only the most vulnerable families receive support. Another purpose of this program is keeping families together and thus preventing children from growing up in an orphanage. 80 percent of children in Thai orphanages are not actually orphans, but parents don’t have the financial means or the knowledge to take care of their own children. Yet study has shown that children in orphanages develop much slower than children who grow up within a family. Hence our goal to keep families together
    4. Awareness Project: Prevention is better than cure. Siam-Care reaches out to HIV-infected people in the Thai society, but much rather we would like to see people protect themselves enough so that the HIV-virus would not spread any further and would come to an end. Study shows that each year 6400 Thai people get infected with the HIV-virus. The HIV prevalence in 2019 was 1.1%, which is one of the highest in Asia and the Pacific. Thailand is responsible for 9 % of the region’s total population of people living with HIV. Due to joined efforts of Siam-Care and others, the epidemic is now in decline, but the prevalence remains high, especially among men having sex with man and people between 16 and 25 years old. Thailand hopes to end AIDS by 2030, which acquires a lot of awareness raising. Siam-Care helps educate the public on HIV-related issues such as sex education and HIV-prevention, but also on issues such as child protection and human trafficking. Our knowledge and experience in these areas is officially recognized by the Thai government.