The following are some of our placement options to give you an idea about the possibilities. Basically ANYTHING is possible, just tell us what you’re interested in and we’ll go out of our way to find it for you.

Music / Arts / Dance / Sports / Cooking Projects

Use your creative skills at one or more of the Music, Arts, Dance, Sports or Cooking Projects. We offer several placements at different organizations. Be an Arts Teacher at a school or orphanage or even a Break Dance teacher in a Burmese refugee camp on the border. Art, dance, music and sports are ancient means of communication between different races and tribes, and bring excitement and joy to all.

Teaching English in local and provincial schools and orphanages

Thai students, especially in rural areas or at schools with few foreign teachers, seldom get the chance to practice their English skills. As a result, students with poor English skills have reduced chances regarding job opportunities in the future. An important part of our work is to place participants in schools and orphanages both in Chiang Mai city and beautiful rural areas in order to improve the English language skills of these students.

Teaching monks at a Temple School or Buddhist University

Teaching monks is very rewarding, as we have found that they are open to and genuinely interested in learning English and in teaching participants about Thai culture and Buddhism in return. We offer several placements teaching monks in temple schools and at a Buddhist University.

Teaching and working with HIV/Aids Children

Many children in Chiang Mai who are infected with the HIV/Aids virus are either orphans whose parents have died from the disease or children who have been abandoned by parents too ill to cope. Although the Thai government has launched several ‘HIV/Aids prevention campaigns’, the message is not getting through, with as many as 85% of Thai young people not seeing the virus as a cause for concern. The Cultural Exchange Program offers placements at various orphanages and organisations which look after HIV/Aids- infected children and adults. You can learn more about HIV/Aids in Thailand by visiting http://www.avert.org/thailand-aids-hiv.htm.

Working with deaf / disabled / blind / autistic children / adults

Vulnerable minorities often receive either minimal support or no support at all from the Thai government. These groups desperately need people to take care of them, especially as many have been abandoned by their families. We offer several placements working with deaf, blind or disabled children and adults. You can be a caregiver, a teacher, work on art/music/ dance projects etc. with them.

Working with Animals

Animals in Thailand are neither regarded not treated as well as they are in the West. Be a caregiver for animals, help the animal care and shelter organisations with fundraising and organizing events, assist at mass sterilizations, help educate Thai children about animal care etc.

Phrao Community Development

In Phrao, a small and beautiful but poor provincial town, 90 kms north of Chiang Mai city and well known for its surrounding mountains and hill tribe peoples, we work closely with an NGO on community developments projects.

A Saturday and after school program serves almost 150 children aged 7 to 17 from the four mostly ethnic minority villages located within walking distance of the Saturday school and Children’s Homes. The children are desperate to learn English - and their parents are desperate for them to learn it, as well as math and Thai - because a better education than they have been getting is their only way out of the double trap of poverty and prejudice. For these children, this school is therefore not just school; it is a place of refuge, of fun and of hope.We offer several placements for English, math, physical education, arts and dance teachers.

Phrao History Project. Collaborate with a teacher of Thai and a local historian to organize and run a writer’s workshop for children attending the Saturday School. This project will consist of orchestrating the conducting of “oral history”, “personal narrative” or “tale telling” sessions with the great-grandparents and grandparents of the children at the Saturday school. As their weekly Thai class”, the children will turn the interviews into (more or less) good Thai prose. The workshop leader, however, will be responsible for turning their efforts into a living history of the villages, biographies of the people, compendia and stories, tall tales, and then literally turning these into illustrated books.

A Micro-enterprise Textile Project has started to develop a going concern centered around textile products made in the Phrao Valley and to provide fair wage employment to Phrao residents. Do you have skills in (one of) the fields of business, marketing, product design, retail, textiles, weaving. Join this project!

Business English for Phrao Local Government Officials. Teach weekly classes of conversational business English to staff members at the ABT Mae Wan (Mae Wan Sub-District) and Tesabon Mae Pang (Sub-District Mae Pang) offices. You will need to assess participants’ levels of competency and may want to divide participants at each location into two (or more) sections. Classes will be held in the Informal Education buildings located at each sub-district office site.

Pre-School Childcare. You will work with a small Child Care Centre staff to care for approximately 60 1-to-4 year olds. The centre is less than a year old, is clean and bright and has excellent outside play facilities. The placement offers the opportunity to engage with pre-schoolers as a regular care giver or to develop special activities or programmes, together with the opportunity to interact closely with the small staff of young, intelligent Thai women.