“No I don’t teach, I work in the Office” – by Erin Grout

My mother was skeptical when I said I was leaving for Thailand in a month to work as a full-time volunteer for an NGO for half a year. She was reassured when she saw that the organization had a website, was on Google maps, replied to my emails, and generally seemed legitimate. Still, I had student loans and the more responsible choice at the time seemed to be staying in the US, getting a paid job, and maybe taking a holiday to Thailand someday. But I decided it was the opportunity I was looking for and, bank-account-be-damned, I was off.

Luckily, it turned out moving to Phuket and volunteering for Phuket Has Been Good To Us Foundation (PHBGTU) was a great decision. Volunteering for the Foundation doesn’t just mean making coffee (although we do enjoy our morning cup of Joe); I became the primary marketing and communication fellow or the “Marketing Department”. This role meant liaising with media sponsors, updating our social media, creating our quarterly newsletter, marketing and helping to plan our major fundraising events, and more! In short it was amazing career experience, working with great people, on a beautiful tropical island! #Winning.

Even the fact that I happened to arrive on the island during an El Nino year –which meant the rainiest high-season most people seemed to be able to remember – hasn’t put a damper on my time as a full-time volunteer. One of the best parts of the job is helping out at Coconut Club, the after-school programme for residential students at Kamala school. For an hour each day we play games or create arts and crafts with students who live full time at the school because they are orphans or their parents are unable to take care of them. Spending time with the children we work to benefit through quality English language programmes is the best reminder that a day full of monotonous emailing was worth the effort. 

Fortunately, working in the office was usually very dynamic and meant taking responsibility for a variety of projects. I stayed with the Foundation for 9 months and was able to take part in all three of our major fundraising events over the course of the year: A Night at the Opera; Black Tie, Muay Thai; and Pop Up 3. While I was primarily working on marketing our small team shared responsibility for tasks and everyone was involved in our fundraising events. Even our seven-member teaching team would help out before and on event day.

 While a salary is a nice perk of any job, I am incredibly happy that I chose to be a full-time volunteer for PHBGTU. I was lucky enough to move to Phuket and meet fun people, take part in great festivals, eat delicious food, and travel around Thailand a bit! Plus, while my time with the Foundation is wrapping up, I am hoping to stay on in Phuket and I am therefore seeking new work opportunities. In the meantime, I will definitely stay informed on all the happenings at Phuket Has Been Good To Us and take part whenever I can!

Reflections on Volunteering Abroad by Ruth Hall

When I arrived in Phuket to start my 6 months volunteering with Phuket Has Been Good To Us I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, but it wasn’t that I would spend over a year here working with the Foundation. What started out as 6 months quickly turned into the best year of my life. I have met some amazing people who will be friends for life, had the chance to explore new places and gained new experiences. Most importantly I have loved getting to know the children and working towards giving them a better education to benefit their future.  

During my time with PHBGTU, the majority of my responsibilities as an Office Fellow included marketing and social media, volunteer recruitment and looking after visitors to the Foundation. During the last few months I got involved with running our fundraising events, specifically planning A Night at the Opera 2016. All of this was new to me when I arrived, but my experience here has taught me so much about life behind the scenes in an NGO and all the hard work that goes into running a charity. I learned so much from everyone at PHBGTU that I know I can take with me to my future.

Every afternoon I would try to make it to the school to join in Coconut Club activities. This is always the best part of the day for anyone working or volunteering with the Foundation. After a tough day in the office, there is nothing better than heading down to school to see your all your favourite students. We spend the afternoon playing games, painting pictures and having fun. At the end of the hour, you find yourself with paint on your face, glitter on your arms, feathers in your hair and a million selfies on your phone. It’s hard to put into words how much I will miss all the children at school and the crazy afternoons at Coconut Club.

As much as I loved Coconut Club, Saturday swimming was always the highlight of my week. Every Saturday afternoon you can find a group of residential students, teachers and volunteers marching down to Kamala beach or one of the local hotel pools. There are always a group of students waiting at the teachers’ office hoping to go. This gives them the chance to leave school for an afternoon and have some fun while learning to swim. The children are so excited to be playing in the water and the sand, throwing Frisbees and doing handstands. Thanks to Kamala Green Club who donated gloves and bags, during this time we also get the kids to do a beach clean on their way. It’s fun to see how pleased they are when they manage to find the biggest piece of rubbish. It is also a great way to expose them to some extra English without them noticing they are learning!

During my time in Thailand, I have been lucky enough to travel and learn about Thai culture. From weekends being a tourist in Bangkok, beach days and rock climbing in Krabi, scuba diving in Koh Phi Phi, getting to know elephants at an elephant sanctuary, and exploring tea plantations and cities in Malaysia I feel lucky to have been given the opportunity to see some of the incredible places in and around Thailand. As amazing as all of this has been, most of all I have loved working with the team and getting to know some amazing people and kids. I am sure that I will be back to visit my PHBGTU family in the future, but for now, I feel lucky to have been able to call this beautiful country my home.

Running a Fundraising Event: Black Tie Muay Thai III - by Claire Martin

As a full time, Volunteer Office Fellow with Phuket Has Been Good To Us, one of my roles has been managing our next big event, Black Tie Muay Thai III, which takes place on Saturday 3^rd December. The event is located at Outrigger Laguna Phuket Beach Resort, an absolutely beautiful hotel right on an amazing beach; it is stunning! Guests will enjoy Muay Thai fights and demonstrations by well-known personalities on the island and by more experienced fighters. In addition to the fights, the night will also consist of amazing food, lots of drinks, and plenty of dancing! We are incredibly lucky to have Outrigger as such a generous sponsor and host, this event could not happen without them.

This is the third year that PHBGTU is running Black Tie Muay Thai. It was a success in past years so we decided to continue the fundraiser again this year. Having the example of past years and knowing details of the organisation process has made my job a little easier. That being said, we are always seeking to improve our events by offering guests something new and entertaining each year. This year will definitely not disappoint!

Preparation for the event begins months in advance as we work with Outrigger to come up with the basic plan. Outrigger generously supports us by setting up food and beverage sponsors and producing and printing our event posters and tickets. Each year we must also recruit fighters and organise training and sponsorship. Often a fight has competitors with limited experience who have been training for the night for just a few months. We are lucky to have great support from community members who agree to take part and from Muay Thai gyms including Sumalee Boxing Gym, Sutai Muay Thai, Tiger Muay Thai, Sitsongpeenong Brothers Muay Thai, Cherngtalay Muay Thai and Pasak Muay Thai!

In the past few months, I have learned a lot about how non-profit charities raise funds. In addition to receiving a portion of the money from ticket sales after costs are covered, we also have a fantastic silent auction, and fun opportunities to try and choose the winning fighter for a donation; if a guest’s prediction is accurate they win a prize! We also have table prizes which guests can enter to win with a donation for tickets. Competition is between the members of the table and a lucky winner is drawn towards the end of the evening. In order to give away great prizes, we first have to rely on kind donors and generous supporters of our foundation who help us by donating these gifts. People from all over Thailand and the world make this event possible by donating things like exclusive hotel stays, fabulous dinners, beautiful pieces of jewellery, yacht trips, and more. While people primarily donate prizes out of the goodness of their hearts, we also do our best to make it beneficial for them as well. We help give them positive exposure by thanking them in our newsletters, on our social media, in our advertisements, and on the night. There are tons of great prizes given away throughout the night with 100% of profits going to PHBGTU.  All of this takes a lot of work behind the scenes in the run-up to the event.

In addition to companies who donate prizes, we receive a lot of support in other ways, such as through advertising. The Phuket News has been one of our longtime supporters and graciously partners with us on all of our major fundraising events. The exposure we generate from their coverage is a major factor in our success!  Other media outlets, schools, and businesses also generously support us by posting our event Posters and assisting with our advertising for free. We also have people that help us considerably on the night. For instance, we have an amazing MC, Jason Wilder from Live 89.5 who helps make the event a lot of fun. Our photographer, Gina Smith, is also volunteering her time and skills to give us amazing pictures and coverage of the night.

Before the event happens there is a ton of work to do. From marketing to booking seats, securing payment and delivering tickets. From drawing up the floor plan to creating run sheets that outline the timing of the night. There is also a lot of coordinating to do between the staff at Outrigger, our fighters, the gyms training the fighters, all of our donors (which can number over 100), and everyone else who helps make the night possible.

The night of the event is a lot of fun, but in even the morning before there is a lot of setup and preparation that is a huge group effort. After the event, we like to thank our sponsors and our guests. We also must complete budgeting, post pictures from the evening and have a post-event meeting to discuss how the event went and ways we can improve next time. It takes a surprising amount of work, and the generous support of so many people, to make this event a success.

Last year we raised over 900,000 THB, enough to fund two English teachers for a year! As a registered non-profit here in Thailand, all the money we raise goes towards covering our operating costs, paying our teachers, and helping the children. This can quickly add up to sizeable costs. Big events like Black Tie Muay Thai III are a huge part of our fundraising strategy and make our mission to provide quality English education a reality.

The effort it takes is definitely worth it. Every day at our afterschool programme, Coconut Club, we get to see firsthand the impact we are having in these childrens’ lives. It is an incredible feeling to know we are helping to make a difference! As the days speed by and the countdown to Black Tie Muay Thai III continues, I get more and more excited.  We are all looking forward to a fantastic night and hope for another great turnout!

A year in volunteering - by Leo 'the Lion' Ferrari

When I was in my home country, Brazil, I decided that I needed some change and needed something else to fulfill my expectations as a human being. Reflecting on how I should use my time to make a positive impact, the possibility of volunteering with a cause that promoted child education seemed the perfect fit for me.

I have a good level of English, thanks to my parents who worked hard and made me attend many years of English classes. One of my least favorite activities as a teenager opened up some of the most amazing opportunities in my adult life. After deciding on a cause, a destination, and a few foundations that shared my goals, I found Phuket Has Been Good to Us (PHBGTU). PHBGTU is a foundation that works to improve the economic opportunities and life choices of children. Based in Phuket, it was created after the tsunami in 2004. The concept is simple; to generate funding and offer high quality, practical English language education to young children in government schools.

I had never worked directly in the nonprofit sector. I had zero experience with the day-to-day activities of a charity but I had the drive to learn new skills and tackle all the challenges that came with the unfamiliar work place. Tina Hall, the director of operations at the foundation decided to give me the opportunity and trained me in the basics of fundraising, event management and building relationships with donors. As a small team, multitasking became a large part of the job. From printer operator to leading meetings with hotels on new projects; this was all new to me.

One of the most exciting parts of my day was the possibility of interacting with the children we teach and experiencing firsthand the reason we do this work. After school hours the Foundation runs Coconut Club, this offers opportunities for the Thai children to practice their conversational English outside the classroom in a relaxed, fun, and social environment. This is an essential aspect of the learning process and developing the language skills they have gained from their classroom lessons. My favorite activity was Saturday swimming classes which offered the perfect setting to enjoy the beautiful beaches in Phuket at the same time as seeing the delight on the children’s faces. Many of the children we teach are orphans. They have a complicated home life and often live on the school grounds. Seeing these children happily playing at the beach and interacting with us in English made it come together in my mind why the work I was doing and the mission of the Foundation were so important.

An unforgettable, personal highlight of my time at PHBGTU has to be training to be a Muay Thai fighter. One of the big fundraising campaigns hosted by PHBGTU is a Muay Thai Gala Night. We needed two volunteers with no previous experience to be trained in four months to be able to get into the ring on the night and take part in a Muay Thai fight. I decided to be one of the guys. This opportunity enabled me to experience one of the most traditional examples of Thai culture. Training Muay Thai with the locals changed my perception of the country in so many ways. If you are curious to see how I did on the night, click here. 

Phuket is conveniently located in the South of Asia making traveling easy and affordable. During my time as a volunteer I was able to visit a few of the most amazing places, I had ever imagined. From deserted beaches in Cambodia to river parties in Laos to a surf trip in Bali. Close to Phuket, my favorite beach was Railey, a small peninsula between the city of Krabi and Ao Nang. It is only accessible by boat and surrounded by huge limestone cliffs -a hard place to forget.

Thailand will always impress me with its purity and I still remember the first time I heard the words “Sawasdee Krap” in the back of a taxi, weaving through the congested streets of Bangkok. It is hard to express my gratitude for a country that made it possible to meet my girlfriend (who now lives with me back in Brazil), experience genuine smiles and helped me find a new sense of fulfillment in life.

It may be cliché to say “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”, but the work the foundation does in Phuket is remarkable! I will always think fondly of my days as a volunteer, from the Pad Thai meals, the office cats to the amazing people I worked with. I left PHBGTU to continue on my life path but those smiles will never leave my heart.