More than 100 primary school students in the Sam Roi Yot district of Prachuap Khiri Khan have new classrooms thanks to the generosity of a couple and support from the two Thai companies that they each manage.
Last weekend and for the 10th year in a row, James Gulkin, managing director of Siam Canadian Group, and his wife Chupit Chutitum, managing director of Penner-Madison & Co, attended the opening of a new schoolhouse that they arranged to have built. This year it was at Ban Koh Phai school in Sam Roi Yot's Rai Mai sub-district.
The Choi Kataichin schoolhouse, named after Chupit's mother, was built at a cost of 2.4 million baht, which was funded by the two companies. The new single storey concrete building will serve 104 students and replaces the former schoolhouse that was dilapidated after years of frequent flooding.
Construction began on Aug 17, last year and was completed on Dec 22, while the entire school attended the handover ceremony on Feb 13. The ceremony was chaired by Sunat Kaewsuk, director of Prachuap Khiri Khan's Primary Educational Service Area Office 2 and in the presence of Jagrawal Wijit, principal of Ban Koh Phai school and the school's six teachers.
"We are very pleased that your companies realise the importance of education for underprivileged students," Jagrawal said, adding, "please be assured that the new schoolhouse will greatly benefit our students for their learning and development. We are very fortunate that you found us and are supporting us."
James Gulkin explained "before starting this project, our team had searched for a target school over the Internet and we found that Ban Koh Phai school was a prospect for our annual social activity".
"Next we went to Prachuap Khiri Khan province to carry out a survey of the school and we realised that the school needed help for its underprivileged students to continue their education and improve the potential of their future," he added.
James Gulkin and Chupit Chutitum have been building schoolhouses for a decade now, many of which have been located in remote areas of Thailand, with the support of the companies that they represent.
And with the handover ceremony of Ban Koh Phai school completed they are now reviewing prospective schools in order to select the one that needs their help the most this year.
A classroom in the new school building.
A view of the mountains in Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park from the newly-constructed building at Ban Koh Phai school.
