Volunteering at Boon Choo Children’s Home

Volunteering at the local orphanage

We volunteer at Kru Boon Choo Children’s Home twice a week and shower the kids with love and affection. A lot of people give the kids food and clothes. We sometimes do that too, but the best thing we can give them is our time.

Our visits get quite rowdy, balls flying everywhere, kids and addicts running round laughing. We draw pictures, play football, colour in, paint their nails. Sometimes they paint ours too.

After a few visits the kids start to remember people. They swarm the car when we arrive.

It can be a bit confronting to visit a Thai orphanage for the first time, but it’s a richly rewarding experience for them and for us. And it can work wonders for your recovery.

It helps to build gratitude by putting things in perspective and reminding us how fortunate we are.

Seeing the kids laughing and smiling with their faces lit up can remind us we do have something to give, that we can make a difference in someone else’s life. That’s a powerful feeling after years of harming others during addiction.

It’s immensely therapeutic to get out of your own head and think about other people.

Addiction is a lonely place of isolation. Connecting with others is the antidote, and that happens fast at the orphanage.

We’ll keep coming back!