The following document is a rough translation to English of a report from Sidsel Svestad and Per Morten Dahl:

Travel letter from "the smiling country" -  Thailand

Per Morten and I have now returned home after two very eventful weeks in Thailand. It has been important, and particularly for us, to return to Phuket after being hit by the tsunami.

 Who did we give money?

With this travel letter we want to express our thanks to each of you for the help you have given to Nisin's help fund. We have collected about NKR 40 000 and it will come more in the future.

Our permanent "beach lady" from whom we rented sun chairs at Karon Beach was pregnant at Christmas. She was delayed that morning when the big wave came. That might have saved her life but they lost everything they owned. They got money from the fund to buy 10 new sun chairs, which are their livelihood. That was just enough for her and her husband to support their family. A proud and happy mother showed us her daughter, Sea 1 month old

Once again we met our taxi driver Poh who took us to the Phuket International Hospital after Per Morten had managed to bring himself ashore in the tsunami wave at Karon Beach. Poh lives in a large family just near the Sea. In spite of that his house was destroyed and that he did not get contact with his family, he took entirely care of us until we were back to the hotel after treatment at the hospital. Now we were invited to his large family and saw how the house had been rebuilt again. They had lost a car and all movables. Contribution from the fund was enough to by new movables to the house. Their happiness was overwhelming by the whole family.

 The Seaman's Church in Kata Beach

We contacted the Seaman's Church to find out if we could cooperate to help those who were most  in need in the region. A meeting with the Seaman Priest, Rune Birkeland, and the leader of (?), Lise Bang Erikson, was touching. They had good local knowledge and told us that they needed money first of all to the youngest children in the Khao Lak camps. Many small children have lost their mothers and they needed breast milk substitute and napkins. They got money from the fund for these purposes.

 Helping children to smile again.

We travelled around to see how different places were conditioned after  the catastrophe, which had hit so many. We visited country villages and several refugee camps in region around Khao Lak where so many people from the Nordic countries had got drowned. 4000 Thai people got drowned in the same area, but we have not heard very much about that. They still suffered very much and our trip to these camps made a great impression to us. We are just so immensely grateful for having returned home nearly unharmed all four of us. In many of the camps the children had started to paint what they had experienced on batik. This was part of the therapy in order to work with feelings and trauma. Beautiful paintings made by children from 2 years and up to the teens. We bought many paintings from the Norwegian Seaman's Church using money from the fund. The purpose is to use these individual paintings for getting more money to the fund and to the Seaman's Church and their work with the children in the disaster area. One way would be to sell the pictures by auction in Norway, but we are discussing many other possibilities, which may generate more money to our project. If you have any idea please tell us!

The Norwegian Association for Traffic Injured People (Landsforeningen for Trafikkskadd - LTN)

Many thanks to LTN c/o Svein Ove Langeland. They gave us 500 cuddly toys ”Selius”, which we were happy to distribute to children who had lost everything. We visited many camps in Khao Lak and a poor country village just outside Phuket City. We gave also to the Seaman's Church.

Every place we came to the children lined up and all of them thanked us in the Thai way for the cuddly toys. The happiness you could see in the eyes was great. A very touching experience for us.

School money to 15 children  

Our tailor at Karon Beach, Noi and Kao who we have known from several visits in Phuket helped us to get contact with a school (Prasart Wittaya School, phone 0066 76 211349, Songkram Road, Muang, Phuket), where 15 of the children were affected in some way by the tsunami. They had lost one or both parents or lost the livelihood. The government has promised to help these children, but in reality it is only for a term of 6 months. After that they have to make it themselves. To many of these children it means they have to leave the school. We want to help them by giving them godfathers and to other children. If this is something for you, so please contact us. They need you! In this project we had very good help from Bente Jacobsen, a friend of Sidsel

 In the picture Sidsel and Bente behind Noi and the director Wittaya Boonyong surrounded by the teachers Sopa Ngernrim and Wandee Noophon

Future work.

Finally we want to thank all of you who have given small and big amount to the fund. We can assure you that all the money goes to that part of the Thai people in Phuket and Khao Lak who need it most.

The generosity is still great in this important project. You are welcome to support further work on account no 110 11 94390 in Askim Sparebank, so that we can help more children. Much of the money in future will be channelled through the Seaman's Church in Phuket. In that way we will be sure the money will be given to those who need it most. There will be no middleman who lines his pocket. New trips to Thailand are planned to September and November.

It would be fine if we could arrange godfathership with families or school classes in Norway and specified children in Phuket. That would be good for the children both in Norway and in Thailand. Monthly support in order to safeguard further education would be a good solution. Such an arrangement could be included in the Norwegian school education to get a contact with the pupils in Thailand. 

Kontact information

Sidsel Svestad and Per Morten Dahl - e-mail isis.volare@c2i.net 

Bente Jakobsen - e-mail beja0106@online.no

Vibeke Kubberud – e-mail vibekekubberud@hotmail.com