In Gear | Rotary in Southern New Zealand Issue 2 | Page 15

Curiosity got the better of him, and, before long, David
was corresponding with those at the Thai coalface to
better understand where the sponsorship was going
and the impact it was having. It would turn out to be
not only an eye-opening education, but the beginning
of what has become his humanitarian opus.

A

T the operational heart of the Rescue
Mission for Children, in northern Thailand,
is Asa. The centre’s co-founder, she, like
her young charges who live at the centre,
is from the Akha tribe – a people who are
among the planet’s most powerless and displaced.
“They are stateless. They have no status, no
citizenship,” David explains. “They have no legal right
to live in the world, so they’re not respected in any
way, shape, nor form by the people in Thailand.”
Despite such systematic and relentless oppression,
violent opposition is not in their nature.
“They’ve been around for
500 years and, in that time,
throughout history, they’ve
never formed an army, and
there’s never been anything
they’ve responded to with
conflict. If there is conflict, they
tend to up sticks and go into
the jungle,” he says.
Asa
“And that’s why the Akha
people are spread throughout
the hill lands of six countries: Thailand, Myanmar,
Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and China.”
David likens Asa to Myanmar’s Nobel Peace Laureate,
Aung San Suu Kyi.
“Asa’s that sort of person and commands that sort of
mana with the Akha people, because they know she’s
trying to save them.”
But for her father’s foresight, though, Asa likely would
have suffered the same torturous fate of so many of
her Akha childhood friends: abduction … rape … assault
… death.
“At the age of six, her father took her down and put
her across the fence into the local school and left her
there,” David says.
“She didn’t know why at the time, but her father knew
that education was going to be the key to their daughter
surviving.
“After the initial trauma, she got into school and
classwork and education, and she absolutely thrived.
She was a star pupil.

“At the age of about 12 or 13, she came out of school
and went home to her village to visit her parents. The
first sight she was greeted with was one of her very
good friends being dragged away at gunpoint by a
trafficker.
“And then she found her best friend lying in a hut, dying
of full-blown AIDS. She’d been in a brothel situation,
and was raped to the point where she contracted HIV.
“So, Asa committed, from that very young age, her
entire life to saving her people, because if she didn’t do
it, no-one would.”
While the children who come to the Rescue Mission
for Children today are brought by their Akha parents,
historically Asa has put her own life on the line to save
abducted youngsters.
“In one case, she rescued about 18 Akha kids who
had been snatched by traffickers in Burma. They had
rounded up these kids, and they were going to be sold
into brothels,” David says.
“Asa went in there, dressed as a peasant, and came
across the traffickers. They were drinking moonshine
whiskey. They got to the point where they were so
intoxicated they passed out, so she got the kids in the
middle of the night and took them to safety.
So, she has done some very dangerous – and very
brave – stuff.”

T

ODAY, the Rescue Mission for Children is
home to 37 Akha children, who live there
during the school term. It’s here they are
fed, clothed, nurtured, taught life skills and
sent out during the week to schools in the
local Mae Suai community, returning to their families
during holidays.
The centre is overseen by an Australian-based board;
its survival relies solely on donations and fundraising.
“All of the infrastructure at the centre has been built
mainly by volunteer church groups and Rotary clubs
from around the world – there are Rotary logos all over
the place. But 20-odd years later, the place is starting to
get pretty run down,” David points out.
Planning and initial construction for 14 new classes at
the centre started in 2011, so up to 540 children could
receive vocational training onsite, but funds dried up
grinding progress to a halt. Dozens of Akha children
who would benefit from being at the centre have been
identified, he says, but there are simply not the funds
or facilities to cater for them.
Child sponsorship is crucial to enabling children to
come to the centre, and part of David’s role is to secure

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