Children Under Rama VIII Bridge

I am writing a book on the Rama 8 community, especially the education of the children who grow up there. The book follows Kru Chao, Mr. Chaowalit Sad-samai, the volunteer teacher who oversees the Rama VIII Bridge Child Opportunity Center. He looks after the disadvantaged and the disabled in the slums, finds them work when he can, and has stayed with this stretch of the river for more than fifteen years.

Kru Chao lives with both intellectual and physical disabilities. That is not a footnote in his story. It is the reason he started. People looked down on him, and he kept going because he believed he was still capable of helping someone else.

I have known him since I was very young. My mother used to take me to do charity work the way other families go to the market. As a kid I did it because I had to. Later, after I had my own hard years and understood the world a little better, I grew to love this community and to feel a deep respect for him.

One night at dinner he made me laugh with that dark sense of humor he keeps for people who sit long enough. It pained me that most people would never see this side of him, simply because of his disabilities. I asked if he wanted to grow the work, to help more people.

I don’t want to expand this anymore. I am doing so much already.

That was not the answer I expected. Then he kept going. It was not that he did not want to. He was doing it alone because he trusted no one. He does not see Rama 8 as a project. He sees it as something he just does. He is not building a future version of the center. He is living inside the present day.

The only way I’d let someone into this life with me is if they are able to do this job 24 hours of every day and not be paid for three or four months. Then maybe I’d consider it.

In his eyes it does not matter where he is helping, as long as he is helping somewhere to the end of his ability. There is no plan for a larger team, no rollout, no second site. After he is gone, the public services will probably take over the management. I asked him what children need the most help with. I thought he would say money. Funding their education on what the government sends is the thing he struggles with most.

Psychological and emotional support. Adults don’t know how to raise kids nowadays, and they end up creating humans that don’t know the values of kindness, respect, and altruism.

He believes rebellious kids are often children who never had an adult to tell the deepest pain to. When he first arrived, more than fifteen years ago, the community did not accept him because of his disabilities. He started with the troubled kids. Recognition came later, and only because he stayed.

This page is not a finished book. It is the work underneath it: showing up, listening, and refusing to flatten a teacher into a slogan. When I have photographs from the community that I can share with care, they will live here with the writing.