Some fifteen years ago an Australian teacher, teaching in Thailand took her class on an excursion to a remote area on the border with Myanmar, a little south west of the Bridge over the River Kwai. Here she saw a desperate need, went back and resigned her teaching job and with five dollars in the bank returned to the little village and began a sanctuary for children. She gathered about her displaced children from Myanmar and gave them a home and care. She named their home the Bamboo School, because that is of what the first buildings were constructed.

One child delivered into her care recently is Soy Fah, a baby abandoned in a public toilet at birth and thought to be blind. Catherine the teacher took her in and cared for her. The Rotary Club of Ipswich City heard of Soy Fah’s plight and funded several eye operations that restored much of her sight. Soy Fah cannot receive Government help because she has no nationality or citizenship. Now with her restored vision she is about to commence school.

Catherine is also a qualified nurse. The year she commenced the Bamboo School she was also called upon to supply medical care for villagers in this remote community. That year some eighty one people died preventable deaths if they had of been able to get to a hospital in time. The following year Catherine began to supply a free Ambulance Service with a converted Toyota Hi-Ace van donated by friends in Australia, only eleven people died.

This year through the efforts of the Rotary Club of Ipswich City and Member of Parliament Jim Madden we are about to supply a decommissioned four wheel drive Ambulance donated by Queensland Ambulance Service and the State Government to the Bamboo School. The shipping Company North Line have offered to ship the vehicle to Thailand. The vehicle is being garaged by Llewellyn Motors while we are awaiting the approval of the Thai government to allow the vehicle to be supplied to the Bamboo School Duty free as a donation.