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GIS research project reveals Koh Samet more expensive than mainland
GIS girls prepare
for their research on the beach.
GIS students spend two days on Koh Samet looking at
land use and prices.
Students get close to nature during their Koh Samet
trip.
Supanut (Off) Yaemsri,
Year 10
Tourists going to the island resort of Koh Samet pay up
to 50 percent more than they do on the mainland, a student research project
has revealed.
On June 2, a group of students from Garden International
School in Ban Chang, Rayong ,went to Koh Samet, an island near Pattaya, to
investigate the tourism industry for their Geography coursework.
The results showed that soft drinks on the mainland cost
15 baht, but on the island they are 25 baht. Snacks, such as crisps, are
about 20 baht on the mainland but on Koh Samet the price usually doubles,
and while mainland ice-cream goes for 40 baht, once on the island the cost
is 60 baht.
Water was almost the same price, only 2 baht more
expensive than the normal price of 8 baht, so there’s no need to carry lots
of bottles over on the ferry.
Items purchased were between 5 and 30 baht more
expensive. Chewing gum was particularly more expensive than on the mainland,
while bottled water was only 2-3 baht more.
Most of the land was used for shops, convenience stores
and restaurants.
In the morning, all the students on this trip took a bus
to the port in Ban Pae, Rayong, and then caught a boat to the island,
arriving before lunch. Students prepared and started to do their research on
‘environmental quality’ at Hat Sai Kaew. From the result of this experiment,
it revealed that the further we travel away from Hat Sai Kaew the
environmental quality at the beach increases. We tested the water and how
clean the beach was and how many people were there.
After all the morning experiments, we then had lunch at
the town centre of Koh Samet, which is cheaper than the food at the hotel.
After lunch, we surveyed 25 tourists that visited Koh Samet. At Koh Samet
there are a lot of tourists that come from different countries, but from the
results many of them are domestic tourists, but the majority were
international tourists.
On the next day we needed to find out the prices from a
convenience store and the price of services on Koh Samet and compare these
to the prices on the mainland. From what we find, most things on Koh Samet
are more expansive than on the mainland, because Koh Samet businesses need
to pay for importing goods that they take in from outside.
The last thing that all the students needed to
investigate the use of land on Koh Samet; what is it used for and what is
the total usage area in Koh Samet.
After all the investigations and surveys that all the
students did, they put all that information into a 2,000-word essay for
their Geography coursework which will be used towards their IGCEs next year.
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Regents Round Square Week 2011
features myriad of activities
Organiser Victoria Wells with one of the
residents at the Disabled Ladies Home.
Katrin Puutsa
The Regent’s School Pattaya held its annual Round Square
Week in the last week of term three in June. During this week the whole
school has the opportunity to participate in residential or local activities
organized by staff to promote the school’s IDEALS (Internationalism,
Democracy, Environment, Adventure, Leadership and Service).
The residential trips ranged from full on adventure
activities such as caving in Thailand’s longest caves, kayaking through
rapids and trekking for hours to reach a Karen Hill Tribe in the mountains
as a part of the Check 1 2, Cave Lodge Crew activity. Gibbon Safari and
Flight of the Gibbon included zip lining as well as other fun action
activities.
Over 20 people chose hiking in the Himalayas as an
activity to test their endurance. Environmental and Service trips included a
trip to Singapore to work with ACRES and Louis Ng, one of our community
partners featured at the RS conference 2010 ‘We Walk Together’. Volunteering
at the Elephant Nature Reserve in Chiang Mai was another popular trip where
the students got to bathe and feed elephants as well as make sure they were
enriched and learnt more about these magnificent animals. Students even had
the chance to visit the Koh Phi Phi International Community Centre and work
with the local students and help finish building the centre.
Apart from these amazing trips away from our localities
there were also many activities running in and around Pattaya with lots of
fun options to choose from. The students could learn how to breakdance with
professional B-boy break dancers from the Abundant Life Home. They could
build an enrichment area for bears at the local breeding centre and raise
money for Croston House, one of our long term community partners, through
sponsored cycling, swimming or walking.
Some students spent time at the Disabled Ladies Home and
brightened up their day by running fun activities, such as karaoke, making
t-shirts and decorating flip flops and others enjoyed spending time with
children volunteering at the Pattaya Orphanage or Father Ray Children’s
Village. Others learned to dive with Mermaid’s Dive Centre who are also keen
to maintain beach and marine environment. On campus, students had fun
cooking food from all over the world in the International Kitchen activity.
Children from the Primary School could also choose from
other fun projects and activities such as Cover and Floating, RS Olympics,
Eco Bags, Munching Mushrooms, Animal Adventure and MTV stars.
The different House groups took turns to visit the Mercy
Centre, another Regent’s community partner, either playing with the children
or gardening and painting.
An extra special project involved our Primary students
making their annual visit to Baan Koh Phi Phi School and this time including
our good friends from Baan Maelid School in Mae Hong Son, the first time
that these students had been to the south of Thailand and swam in the sea!
Round Square Week is a much anticipated week every year
and the opportunities that are presented are valuable for everyone taking
part. Overall it was a busy and enriching week for everyone involved and all
are keen to keep up and strengthen the relationships with our community
partners in the future.
Awesome moves from professional B-boy
break dancers at the Abundant Life Home.
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Mercy Center celebrates birthdays with candles and cake
Mr Kevin serenading the Mercy Center
children.
Dianne Doell, Mercy Center
director, blows out the candle with a birthday girl.
Lyndy Moore
Eggleton
Birthdays are special; especially special for
children. Mercy Center children have been abandoned, abused, misused and
orphaned and so it’s a very, very special event for them to celebrate a
birthday.
Sometimes, as is the case for thousands of children
in Thailand, there is no record of birth so there’s no birthday: no
birthday; no name; no history. Working with the local social services,
the Pattaya Mercy Center’s dedicated staff and volunteers seek to
discover the background and birthdays of the children in their care and
in the meantime, because sometimes it can take a good while, every child
is gifted with a special day on which to celebrate a birthday... with
cake!
Supporters and friends of Mercy Center are encouraged
to contribute to the celebrations by sharing their own birthdays with
the children. Just recently Joe (5 June) shared his birthday with the
kids at the Mercy Center Children’s home and brought his friend Kevin
along to teach the children some favourite songs. “Old Macdonald Had a
Farm…” and “Jingle Bells” were enthusiastically presented in a magical
mixture of Thai and English.
Digna (24 June) shared her birthday with the
pre-school little ones at Mercy’s new offices in Duck Square where they
were delighted to be treated to pizzas and, you guessed it, cake!
There’s plenty of free parking at Mercy Center’s new
offices situated beside Big C South, in Duck Square, 565/55 Moo 10. Take
Soi 1 off Pattaya Tai and come to visit… you can book a date to
celebrate your birthday with the Mercy Children, in person or by
telephoning Mercy’s new office telephone number: 038 416 707 (please put
this in your address book) or emailing: [email protected]
You’ll be glad you did!
The Pattaya Mercy Center currently provides a home
and loving care for twenty high risk children with a new facility for a
further thirty almost completed. The Mercy/Pattaya Street Kids
Scholarship initiative provides funding to enable over 220 students to
attend school and the Slum Support Project provides basic foodstuffs and
essentials for seventy families in Pattaya’s poorest areas. Later this
year, Mercy will be celebrating a decade of caring for Pattaya’s most
needy. If you’d like to do something to help please visit and pick up a
copy of our “Needs & Wants” list or contact Dianne on 038 416 707 to
find out how you can help.
Mercy Center kids waiting
to tuck into the birthday cake
Pre school Mercy Center
kids on their first visit to the new Mercy offices in Duck Square
celebrate volunteer Digna’s birthday... with cake.
Front of new offices
beside Big C, South in Duck Square.
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Pattaya Sports Club & Cafe Kronborg join forces to help school
The new filters.
It is a known fact that the majority of people in the world do not drink
sufficient water. That applies to young children and those of us that
are a little more mature and should know better. Sodas, coffee and tea
are all very well but do not have the benefits of clean drinking water,
particularly when you take into consideration the heat and humidity that
we experience in Pattaya.
The health of children is so important and by
providing clean drinking water, we are taking just one step towards
providing them with a healthy start in life. During the last year
Pattaya Sports Club have provided clean drinking water filtration
systems to 7 schools in the area and Nernplabwan School is the most
recent recipient.
We have a thumbs up for
the water.
2100 students at the school had minimum access to
drinking water and it was Nittaya of the YWCA that made the call to PSC
to provide additional facilities. There was doubt that we would respond.
PSC have been donating funds to children, the
handicapped and the underprivileged for more than 30 years, but credit
must go to the many golf bars, affiliated to PSC, for their efforts
raising funds for the needy, mainly through charity golf days.
Cafe Kronborg have their own method of collecting
funds for charity. Small fines are imposed on the unsuspecting, being
late on the tee, arriving at the wrong golf course, hitting a ball into
the water and many more. No one escapes - but it is all in a good cause
after all.
Cafe Kronborg, one of the oldest bars in Pattaya,
situated in Soi Diana, and Pattaya Sports Club combined their efforts to
provide a vastly improved filtration system as can be seen in the photos
and it was a happy occasion when the head teacher, Partip, welcomed
members of Cafe Kronborg, PSC, Nittaya and Pattaya Mail to the
official hand over. As you can see, we were joined by some of the
students to sample the end product and give their seal of approval.
Well done to everyone at Cafe Kronborg.
A very happy Head teacher.
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A song for the children of Pattaya
Sacred Heart students at
the Father Ray Children’s Home.
Derek Franklin
This coming October twenty four students and nine
teachers from Sacred Heart Secondary School in South London once again
will be traveling to Thailand to visit and volunteer at the Father Ray
Foundation and the Pattaya Orphanage.
This will be the fourth time the school will be
visiting, and as most of the students are unable to cover the costs for
themselves, they spend two years raising enough money to cover the costs
of the flights, accommodation and food for twenty four students.
Once in Pattaya the students spend time with the
local residents of the Father Ray Foundation and the Pattaya Orphanage,
using their hard earned money to purchase much needed clothing for the
children and items from both organisations ‘wish list’.
As part of the schools’ fundraising activities they
have recorded a song, ‘Find Our Way’. The song is written and produced
by Mike King, a part time music teacher at the school, features the
students and is available on iTunes and Amazon for just 79p or $0.99.
All proceeds from this uplifting song will be donated
to the Father Ray Foundation and the Pattaya Orphanage.
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