No Sex Please We’re British

[Mobi]

I apologise for enticing you to this thread by using a totally irrelevant topic title.

Christmas and the New Year are upon us, and in the Land Of Smiles it is indeed a festive occasion, where much fun will be had and much money will be spent. Our beloved Pattaya is jam packed with tourists, and it is easy to forget that we are in a town where there is still an underclass of impoverished, penniless and starving people, for whom there is virtually no hope of a brighter tomorrow.

It is ironic that the very success of Pattaya as Thailand’s premier tourist location has spawned this desperate and tragic community in our midst. The tourist dollar and the huge influx of foreign residents has created a mass migration of the poor and stateless to this town in search of work or any means to survive. Prostitution, drugs, and petty crime are the order of the day, and at the bottom of the pile are the homeless, the addicts, the underage single mothers, the drug dealing fathers and of course the most vulnerable of all: the kids – many ‘conceived in he ..ll’ – the ‘dust of life’, eking out a precarious existence in filthy slums.

Picture if you can, young, severely under nourished children, spending their days rifling through piles of garbage – looking for something to keep them alive. They wear filthy, threadbare clothes, have little or no food, their disease ridden bodies are covered in scars and insect bites; they have no education, no toys, no childhood.

Even worse, many of these kids are ‘sold’ by their desperate mothers or evil fathers as sex slaves to even more evil foreign paedophiles. Some are sold over and over again.

Then along come Dianne and Fred, and elderly couple from Canada. They see these kids in the slums and their hearts go out to them. They immediately try to help by bringing food and clothing to these pathetic little ones. Then one day, someone asks them to provide a home for the most vulnerable – many of whom had been abandoned by their parents. Most are not strictly orphans; some do not even have Thai citizenship papers, so they fall through the cracks. No one in Thailand will help them. - Except the Mercy Mission.

Today, some five years since that first visit, The Mercy Mission has a residential home which looks after 20 kids, they make regular visits to the slums armed with food, clothing and other provisions, they run a school scholarship programme for poor children in the community, they make weekly visits to the local prison to give food and provisions to single mothers who have been incarcerated with their babies, and as if that wasn’t enough, they send money and supplies to similar missions in Burma – where, incredibly, the need is even greater than here in Pattaya.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

The Mission replies entirely on public donations and help. They need money, food and other provisions, and right now they are in urgent need of volunteers, especially anyone with Admin or IT skills.

So when you are doing your Christmas shopping in the next week, how about putting a few things in your trolley for the Mercy Kids? Even a few hundred Baht’s worth will help, and if enough of you do it, it will make a big difference. If you click on the following link you will see a list of the most urgent requirements:

http://www.mercypattaya.org/Help_Supplies.html

and also a map of where to deliver:

http://www.mercypattaya.org/Images/map_vfc.jpg

If you don’t wish to deliver - just PM me and I will collect from any location and deliver on your behalf.

You can also donate money of you prefer. The donation link is:

http://www.mercypattaya.org/Help.html

And click the relevant 'donate' tab

Thank you one and all, and may I wish you all avery happy Christmas and a prosperous new Year.

Mobi

:D

[dvk1951]

Atta boy Mobi, you threatened to do it and you did. Sex is a well know marketing tool for selling, lets just hope that the converse is true.

Happy Holidays to you, your family and all the wee ones at MM.

[britmaveric]

Mobi - faire play to ya mate, done as I suggested. Hope MM receives a record load of donations this crissie and all next year!!

[Pattaya_Fox]

Well done mobi...looks really professional. Compliments of the season to you and your family and all at The Mercy Mission.....

[Viking]

Are you seriously suggesting that all these people in need came from a better existence before arriving in Pattaya??

Excuse me for disagreeing but this is just the usual crap of better give to a fat Christian priest then directly to the needing on the street! I can’t stand the hypocrisy of Christianity! This country lived without it until now and will continue to do so for ever so just stay of!

Easy for me as a fat Falang to say? Yes! But I have done my far share of contribution in silence and if there is karma I’m saved!!

Viking

[Little Black Duck]

I apologise for enticing you to this thread by using a totally irrelevant topic title.

Christmas and the New Year are upon us, and in the Land Of Smiles it is indeed a festive occasion, where much fun will be had and much money will be spent. Our beloved Pattaya is jam packed with tourists, and it is easy to forget that we are in a town where there is still an underclass of impoverished, penniless and starving people, for whom there is virtually no hope of a brighter tomorrow.

It is ironic that the very success of Pattaya as Thailand’s premier tourist location has spawned this desperate and tragic community in our midst. The tourist dollar and the huge influx of foreign residents has created a mass migration of the poor and stateless to this town in search of work or any means to survive. Prostitution, drugs, and petty crime are the order of the day, and at the bottom of the pile are the homeless, the addicts, the underage single mothers, the drug dealing fathers and of course the most vulnerable of all: the kids – many ‘conceived in he ..ll’ – the ‘dust of life’, eking out a precarious existence in filthy slums.

Picture if you can, young, severely under nourished children, spending their days rifling through piles of garbage – looking for something to keep them alive. They wear filthy, threadbare clothes, have little or no food, their disease ridden bodies are covered in scars and insect bites; they have no education, no toys, no childhood.

Even worse, many of these kids are ‘sold’ by their desperate mothers or evil fathers as sex slaves to even more evil foreign paedophiles. Some are sold over and over again.

Then along come Dianne and Fred, and elderly couple from Canada. They see these kids in the slums and their hearts go out to them. They immediately try to help by bringing food and clothing to these pathetic little ones. Then one day, someone asks them to provide a home for the most vulnerable – many of whom had been abandoned by their parents. Most are not strictly orphans; some do not even have Thai citizenship papers, so they fall through the cracks. No one in Thailand will help them. - Except the Mercy Mission.

Today, some five years since that first visit, The Mercy Mission has a residential home which looks after 20 kids, they make regular visits to the slums armed with food, clothing and other provisions, they run a school scholarship programme for poor children in the community, they make weekly visits to the local prison to give food and provisions to single mothers who have been incarcerated with their babies, and as if that wasn’t enough, they send money and supplies to similar missions in Burma – where, incredibly, the need is even greater than here in Pattaya.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

The Mission replies entirely on public donations and help. They need money, food and other provisions, and right now they are in urgent need of volunteers, especially anyone with Admin or IT skills.

So when you are doing your Christmas shopping in the next week, how about putting a few things in your trolley for the Mercy Kids? Even a few hundred Baht’s worth will help, and if enough of you do it, it will make a big difference. If you click on the following link you will see a list of the most urgent requirements:

http://www.mercypattaya.org/Help_Supplies.html

and also a map of where to deliver:

http://www.mercypattaya.org/Images/map_vfc.jpg

If you don’t wish to deliver - just PM me and I will collect from any location and deliver on your behalf.

You can also donate money of you prefer. The donation link is:

http://www.mercypattaya.org/Help.html

And click the relevant 'donate' tab

Thank you one and all, and may I wish you all avery happy Christmas and a prosperous new Year.

Mobi

:D

What a Wonderful Post Mobi...Truly Wonderful people the Old Canadian Couple, extremely Humanitarian of them..

What a pity in a place where money flows freely as it does here in Pattaya that you literally have to beg for help..

How about this...Increase the tax on Booze and fags..Tax the sex workers @40% and give the extra revenue to

The Mercy Mission ...

[Mobi]

Excuse me for disagreeing but this is just the usual crap of better give to a fat Christian priest then directly to the needing on the street! I can’t stand the hypocrisy of Christianity! This country lived without it until now and will continue to do so for ever so just stay of!

Easy for me as a fat Falang to say? Yes! But I have done my far share of contribution in silence and if there is karma I’m saved!!

Viking

Are you seriously suggesting that all these people in need came from a better existence before arriving in Pattaya??

To the exrtent that any group of penniless people gravitating to a big city and ending up in its slums, with the kids at the mercy of all the degradation and evil that happens in such places - then yes, this is undoubtedly true.

Go and see for yourself.

Excuse me for disagreeing but this is just the usual crap of better give to a fat Christian priest then directly to the needing on the street! I can’t stand the hypocrisy of Christianity! This country lived without it until now and will continue to do so for ever so just stay of!

This is one if the most ignorant and objectionable comments I have read for a very long time - and beleive me there have been a few. I have already stated in a recent thread that I am not an christian and have little time for organised religion - but these people are virtually'saints' and have dedicated what remains of their lives to helping the kids. The 'Buddhist' Thais, for the most,part, do absolutely nothing to help, except try top sweep it under the carpert and pretend such problems do not exist. Bad for business, you see.

So I have answered your post, even though you were extremely rude, made insulting allegations and were inflammatory to the extreme. I hope you are happy.

[Tywais]

if there is karma I’m saved!!

Another post like that here and karma will not save you.

[JacknDanny]

if there is karma I’m saved!!

Another post like that here and karma will not save you.

Coffee has just gone all over my key pad.

Do I send the bill to Tywais or will George sort me out?

[gburns57au]

Mobi...why the use of a fake title to promote what is a good cause...

[BigSnake]

Sound likes a good cause worthy of checking out. Like to make sure where and how my donation is USE!!

[Mobi]

Mobi...why the use of a fake title to promote what is a good cause...

I would have thought it was pretty obvious.

New marketing technique to attract the punters.

I will see how many views I get on this thread vs the number I got on earlier threads and see if it works.

If I have offended you with my fake title then I apologise - but it's all in a good cause, and hopefully a pretty harmless bit of fun.

[JacknDanny]

Mobi...why the use of a fake title to promote what is a good cause...

I would have thought it was pretty obvious.

New marketing technique to attract the punters.

I will see how many views I get on this thread vs the number I got on earlier threads and see if it works.

If I have offended you with my fake title then I apologise - but it's all in a good cause, and hopefully a pretty harmless bit of fun.

Good for you Mobi

[gburns57au]

Mobi...why the use of a fake title to promote what is a good cause...

I would have thought it was pretty obvious.

New marketing technique to attract the punters.

I will see how many views I get on this thread vs the number I got on earlier threads and see if it works.

If I have offended you with my fake title then I apologise - but it's all in a good cause, and hopefully a pretty harmless bit of fun.

Not offended at all....Just fail to see the point...for those interested a true title will work....for those not interested, they will scan it and then leave it alone....so you get a lot of views but no real interest.

still as they say...upto you

[john b good]

Good post Mobi, AND!, a very good cause.

Don't pay too much attention to Viking "I think he has crawled back under his rock"

Edited December 17, 2006 by john b good

[Tammi]

Yes! But I have done my far share of contribution in silence

Viking

Thank you, Viking! May I wish you the gifts of Joy, Peace, and Happiness, this Chrismastime and always.

[Boo]

Mobi here in the UK I have a lot of friends with kids, they are always either throwing away or giving away clothes to charity shops etc. Would decent kids clothing, t-shirts, shorts, jeans (hot weather clothes) be any use (all clean & rip, stain free of course. These will mostly be either baby, toddler or up to 10 year old sizes.

If others things like toys & books (in english, kids books) are of any use too let me know. It seems a crying shame that these things are thrown away. I'll happily pay the cost of postage or always know of people coming though LOS several times a year who can bring them.

Let me know.

[Tammi]

Excuse me for disagreeing but this is just the usual crap of better give to a fat Christian priest then directly to the needing on the street! I can’t stand the hypocrisy of Christianity! This country lived without it until now and will continue to do so for ever so just stay of!

Easy for me as a fat Falang to say? Yes! But I have done my far share of contribution in silence and if there is karma I’m saved!!

Viking

Are you seriously suggesting that all these people in need came from a better existence before arriving in Pattaya??

To the exrtent that any group of penniless people gravitating to a big city and ending up in its slums, with the kids at the mercy of all the degradation and evil that happens in such places - then yes, this is undoubtedly true.

Go and see for yourself.

Excuse me for disagreeing but this is just the usual crap of better give to a fat Christian priest then directly to the needing on the street! I can’t stand the hypocrisy of Christianity! This country lived without it until now and will continue to do so for ever so just stay of!

This is one if the most ignorant and objectionable comments I have read for a very long time - and beleive me there have been a few. I have already stated in a recent thread that I am not an christian and have little time for organised religion - but these people are virtually'saints' and have dedicated what remains of their lives to helping the kids. The 'Buddhist' Thais, for the most,part, do absolutely nothing to help, except try top sweep it under the carpert and pretend such problems do not exist. Bad for business, you see.

So I have answered your post, even though you were extremely rude, made insulting allegations and were inflammatory to the extreme. I hope you are happy.

Re Karma & Thai Culture

The following is from an article about corruption in the Bangkok Post a few days ago. It was written by Mettanando Bhikku who is a Thai Buddhist monk and former physician. He studied at Chulalongkorn, Oxford and Harvard. He is special advisor on Buddhist affairs to the secretary-general of the World Conference of Religions for Peace.

" In Thai culture where "individual survival" is praised as the "highest knowledge" (to quote the great Thai poet Sunthorn Phu), most people are more concerned with their own safety and well-being than with the collective good of the nation. And parallel to this line of thought is the traditional interpretation of the Law of Karma as strongly held by the majority of Buddhists in Thailand. Superficially, it seems that belief in karma leads people to live moral lives. However, the flip-side of the Law of Karma often draws believers to conclude that they have nothing to do with the system of social justice. "The good are always rewarded. whereas the bad are punished" This dogma permits devout Buddhists to be self-focused, passive and develop a high degree of tolerance to social injustice. Thus, the deductive interpretation of the Law of Karma tends to endorse the status quo, i.e. the world is always just and fair, everyone deserves their own status as it is a part of karmic retribution, and every wealthy person has done great charity in his/her past life and is thus deserving of merit in this one.

"On the other hand, the poor and the marginalised are those who have contributed less in their past lives and therefore deserve to suffer for their sin and selfishness. Such interpretation of the Law of Karma has fertilised the soil of Thai culture, with the result we have grown to embrace material success as the goal of life and to promote conservative ethos in society."

[Pattaya_Fox]

After reading that then all I can say is thank goodness for kind hearted people such as Dianne and Fred and for all the helpers who devote their time and in many cases their entire lives to helping those poor and less fortunate people who cannot help themselves.

[Mobi]

Mobi here in the UK I have a lot of friends with kids, they are always either throwing away or giving away clothes to charity shops etc. Would decent kids clothing, t-shirts, shorts, jeans (hot weather clothes) be any use (all clean & rip, stain free of course. These will mostly be either baby, toddler or up to 10 year old sizes.

If others things like toys & books (in english, kids books) are of any use too let me know. It seems a crying shame that these things are thrown away. I'll happily pay the cost of postage or always know of people coming though LOS several times a year who can bring them.

Let me know.

Hi Boo,

Yes, clean, second hand kids clothes can be put to good use - either in the centre or the slums, or even at the border refugee camps.

I wouldn't recommend mailing such stuff - the chances are they will be held up at customs and ridiculous duty rates will be levied. It's just not worth the hassle and expense you and we would have.

I suggest that if you have some stuff to send, that you get someone to carry them over as part of their own personal effects - should be no problems. And when they arrive they can contact us and we'll collect.

Thanks

[pepsi666]

Hi Mobi,

Well I had been looking for any new updates on the MM, and I didnt expect this title, but yes, very neat

I normally look for your name as the thread starter :-)

Been sending a few bob every so often, how they spend it is up to them, they know where its needed

Just wish people who dont want to give anything dont post anything here, dont really help matters, does it, AND as for religeon, dont matter what religeon it is, I have fought in too many countries to see that it is a crutch for the few and mindless, and has caused more deaths than anything else, probably apart from malaria (Justt have a look and see how its affecting the world now , just look at it this way, life is the best way to keep meat fresh and you wont go wrong

This is the only way I can give the kids a chance, so like it or lump it, I'll give a few bob

Well everyone have a good Christmas and a New Year,

[JohnC]

I do not understand why when someone is trying to help others (by whatever means) people degenerate into school playground behaviour and start name calling those who are trying to help in their own small way. It is a simple choice, help or not or help in your own way without these disparaging remarks.

I have no religion and no axe to grind but I admire those that go out of there way to help others, I do my bit in my own way but I would not wish to spend a night distributing clothes and food around the slums of Pattaya however well intentioned. Prior to my retirement I worked as a volunteer with six local charities as well as my professional work with community groups and personally raised in excess of £12 Million pounds between 1998 and 2006 ( the last success was in November)

The good people of the Mercy Centre have a vision and a goal in life to help those less fortunate than themselves and whilst not seeking praise or medals etc they at least deserve some respect and quotations like "fat priest" demeans the author and not the people in question IMO. Using such quotes shows a lack of grasp of the fundemental problems and has personalised what is an excellent project. I was brought up in a democracy where the pen is mightier than the sword BUT only when used with some eloquence and flair. sadly on this occasion neither were in evidence. Mobi keep up the good work there are many people on here that hold you in high esteem for your efforts so do not be dissuaded by such piffle.

[Jai Dee]

Some unworthy posts (and responses to them) have been deleted from this thread.