Christmas 2024

It’s been a beautiful season and our team hopes you are having a wonderful holiday season too! December highlights: 

Our team (and volunteer friends) passed out 1,000 Christmas gifts to sex workers in the red light districts over three nights in three main areas of Bangkok. It was great to be able to reconnect with familiar faces, and meet some new contacts to follow up on. (We also want to say a special thank you to Linda, who covered the costs of all 1,000 gifts). Our annual Christmas party happened Dec. 20th, before we closed for a two week break. Six previous students were able to join our annual party too, with three of those six being students from our first group (back in 2010-2012)!! It was really fun and sweet. There were games, a feast, karaoke, caroling, and of course, gifts!

We also celebrated two of our students as they graduated from our program and started new jobs this month! Please be cheering for both *Tasanee & Tanasak as they make this transition, and continue following their dreams. Tanasak is still in Bangkok and checks in with case workers often. Tasanee’s job is outside Bangkok, but hopefully we can visit soon.

JP was with DN about six months, and resigned Dec. 3rd from the cafe manager position, feeling more led to work with another nearby ministry that we adore. Brittany is staying with us as Outreach Coordinator and doing a phenomenal job! Celeste returned to BKK early Dec to help the cafe transition during Christmas baking sales.

A few November nuggets too:

The Dton Naam team (Gik & Brittany organized this) hosted our first EVER medical clinic. Our team often helps other orgs when they have medical clinics, but it was really exciting to host one in our own neighborhood!! We were able to connect with sex workers in our nearby streets and they could receive testing for HIV and other STDs all for free! Thank you to the Health Development Association of Thailand for making this an available resource.

With Brittany's arrival at the end of April, and also two awesome summer interns, our team has found a rhythm again of more consistent outreach nights in red light areas. The team often goes 3x to 4x monthly (since June). We've met several potential new students, but one has started joining Dton Naam part time. (He's from Laos, so due to legal issues, we hope to have him join full time soon)