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The following review was written excusively for VolunteeringInfo by a previous Fun4Kids volunteer. For more information about Fun4Kids, please see their organisation entry.
I landed in Phuket in April last year and grabbed a bus to Pakarang, a beach town north of Khao Lak. As I hadn’t arranged my volunteering experience or even found an organisation yet, the first thing I did during my first visit to Khao Lak was to find a westerner who had lived in the area for a while, hoping for advice on what to see/do and, fingers crossed, find out about worthwhile organisations to volunteer for. Luckily, I bumped in to a Danish guy who had lived in Khao Lak for several years and had a Thai wife. During one of my visits to the pub they owned they told me about a friend of theirs called Steve, a British fellow who was in Khao Lak when the tsunami hit in ’04 and had stayed since.
Steve runs a project called Fun4Kids, they told me, and they’re basically a “niche” organisation – they come in and take care of the smaller things that big volunteer organisations often miss. Primarily, they build playgrounds for kids, renovate schools (aka learning centres) and act as a bit of a hub for volunteers from various organisations. They also raise money for school materials such as books.
The atmosphere is very laid back, the volunteering work is far from hard-core. I phoned Steve up one evening, and he picked me up at my hotel the next morning and took me along to their workshop. That’s how it worked every day, if you want to head over and help them out you just phone them the day before and Steve will pick you up. There’s no pressure if you want to take time off, and you’re free to come in for just a day to help out.
While I was there we built sunscreens, swings and climbing walls which we then drove out to schools. We also painted school walls, repaired toilets and generally tried to make the buildings and their surroundings as nice and fun as we could. Work started at 9 in the morning until about lunch, for which Steve would drive us all out to one of the nearby beaches where we would eat, after which he would take us all back to our respective hotels; I’d generally be home around 15.30. Their philosophy is that the whole operation should be really laid back in order to attract not only long term volunteers but also try to get ordinary tourists involved. That, and it gets to around 40 degrees around 14.00.
In the evenings we’d all meet up at Lazy House which is a pub in Khao Lak for a few relaxed pints and a bit to eat. One night we arranged a long drive around the adjacent villages to have water fights with the kids. The organisation has an incredibly good reputation with the locals; most restaurants would charge us the same rate they charge locals (as opposed to tourist rates which are considerably higher) and the same goes for the various shops and stalls around. In fact, the doctor wouldn’t even accept payment when I’d broken my toe; all he said was “farang volunteer”.
Like I said, this probably isn’t for anyone looking to do hardcore volunteering – but if you think you’d enjoy an opportunity to do a lot of good while having a heck of a good time, go for it! You will not regret it for a second.
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