Working for BABSEACLE

By Chulaluk (Mu) Chakkawan, Thailand

I worked at BABASEACLE in Chiang Mai for four months at the beginning of 2011. While it was a short time, it was a really good experience and I learned a lot.

I found out about BABSEACLE through my friend Pim, the Intern and Volunteer Coordinator. I visited her office on several occasions to meet interns from other countries. I went with them to help translate at Wildflower (a home for young single mothers), to Mae Rim Primary School (where they were teaching English) and to a prison (where they taught English and legal rights). I was fascinated by the work they were doing. I applied for a position and was accepted into the program.

On my trips to Wildflower, I was able to teach and translate lessons for the Vietnamese interns. We taught English, legal rights and life skills. This was very challenging, as it not only involved preparing a lesson plan beforehand, but then being able to adapt and communicate it. The mothers at Wildflower speak a variety of languages, all at differing levels of competency, so I had to learn to communicate using pictures and acting.

When teaching CLE, the learning is very much two-way. While we went to Wildflower to teach the mothers, we found that we too were doing a lot of learning. We gained incredible insight into the issues faced by young single mothers; we learned to write effective lesson plans, to multi-task and to think on our feet; and we developed valuable communication skills.

I was very happy with my experience at BASBSEACLE and am grateful for the support I was given. Kop Kuhn Kar!