Food4Life by Rotary Samui-Phangan

The Rotary Club of Samui-Phangan is a group of active hands-on people who want to make a difference in our local community.

A group of ex-pats and Thais not born on these islands but privileged to call them our home and determined to give back to the local people who are so welcoming

OUR PROJECTS

Swim4Life - stop child death by drowning

Food4Life - helping families still struggling after Covid lockdowns

Support4Autism - support for all special needs people

Water4Life - fresh drinking water systems into local Thai schools

Defibs4Samui - purchasing and supporting 10 AED defibrillators for the public emergency services

More details of all these projects are on our website with constant updates on our Facebook page. If you want to specifically help one of these projects please tell us in your donation

Follow Us on Facebook

www.facebook.com/RotarySamuiPhangan

Koh Samui, Thailand – once the playground for carefree holiday makers has been devastated by the effects of Covid-19 - the closure of Thailand's borders and the complete collapse of tourism and with that 95% of the island’s income. Local people, once employed in the hospitality industry, have been stranded here with no access to government support and no way to feed themselves - leaving many, already disadvantaged to fall into desperate conditions. Families have no income and are left to scavenge for scraps and pick through garbage.

Over 170 families are registered for our support and we provide them with 1 Food Package per family per month. Each package consists of: 12 eggs, 4 packs of Instant Noodles, 5kg rice, 5 cans of sardines and 1 bottle of cooking oil

300 THB (£7 / US$ 10 / EUR 8) feeds one of our families for 1 month, 1,800 THB (£41 / US$56 / EUR 47) will feed them until the New Year. Please support us with what ever you can. No amount too small to make a difference. 

Our total Fund Raising Target is aimed at supporting these familes until the end of the year when it is expected tourism will have recovered enough to provide employment 12,000 USD (8500 GBP / 375,000 THB) for a 6 Month supply for 170/ 200 Families.

January 2023 - after two and a half years we now feel able to close this project.  Tourism has returned - not to pre-Covid levels of course - but enough to provide employment 

We thank everyone who contributed from the bottom of our hearts.  This amazing response gave us motivation and inspiration to carry on over so many years

With Love and Respect from Samui Island Thailand 

January 2022 - a new year but the same situation for people effected by the Covid related economic collapse on this island.  

Right now hundreds of hotels, restuarants, bars, cafes and shops lie closed and abandoned. The previously vibrant street life for which Thailand was famous has all but disappeared.

The effect on employment is devastating. Not only for those directly employed like cooks, cleaners, waiters etc but right through society: the supply chain of food production, farmers, fishermen, delivery, even hospital staff are no longer needed. For all these people who depended on tourism to feed and care for their families there is simply no alternative employment

As 2021 draws to a close we can only hope for a better year ahead.  There are small shoots of recovery but nothing like enough to support the people who were dependant on tourism pre-covid.   Thanks to generous and kind people accorss the world who continue to support this project.  We will continue the best we can while our strength and finances allow.  

This is Khun Arkee.  Arkee has a husband, Khun Arsett, and a son, Veeya, aged7.  For many, many years on Koh Samui, Arkee earned a respectable living making and selling bracelets and necklaces at the many beach bars and restaurants in Lamai.  Very long, arduous days in the sun, followed by further long sessions at night enabled her to make a meagre living.

Always smiling and friendly and after giving birth carrying Veeya in a harness on her back,  This routine produced a satisfactory lifestyle (but of course not enough for emergencies).

With the advent of Covid causing closure of 95% of all businesses on our tropical paradise island, and nowhere for them to go,  Arkee today continues as usual but now with some days only a single customer, often none.

Arsett has diversified to wandering the island looking for the few fallen coconuts by the roadside which are not obviously owned or as yet unclaimed.  Coconuts sell for approximately 8 THB each and with the revenue from Arkee, together they are lucky most days to earn between 100 – 140 THB (Less than US$5).

The Rotary Food4Life package once a month comprising 10KG rice, small cooking oil and a dozen packs of packet noodles makes all the difference.

"Our people need more rice!!"  This was the resparate message sent out to us this week from the elders of the local community.   So we delivered 180 bags of quality jasmine rice on one day!!  Wednesday 22 September 60 families received 2 bags rice and another 60 families 1 bag rice.  All families received cooking oil and packets of instant noodles.  Please help us continue to help these people with a donation no matter how small.  Every little helkps.

More supplies went out this week to desparate families around Samui.  Up to now we have been  concentrating our efforts in the area around Lamai Temple in the south of the island and the Nepalese Temple near Chaweng.   These pictures are just a few of the people helped living around Lamai.  Thank you everyone for your continued support 

Our regular food delivery went out yesterday to 47 hungry families including baby formula for 9 mothers in the Chaweng area.  Big shout goes out again this week to the generousity of the scuba divers of www.Rainbow-Scuba.com - for being rainbows in other peoples lives.  Just 300 Thai Baht (£6/ $10) will feed a family for one month with a package of rice, noodles, eggs and tinned fish.
9,000 THB (£200/ $300) feeds 30 families. 

Our charity partners on the island (Sisters on Samui) kindly supplied 37 X 5kg bags of rice and to this we added cooking oil, tinned mackeral, Mama noodles and eggs.  All this then delivered to our trusted Nepalese/ Burmese/ Thai community elders who make sure it was distributed to 37 hungry families - people young and old, fit and frail, who have no chance to work again until tourism returns.

Another 47 food parcels delivered recently.  To adhere with social distancing recommendations we do not distribute the food parcels directly to the families. We unload at the Nepalese Temple and leave distribution to the community elders

Last month we were told how some people had been scavenging through garbage bins to find some scraps to eat.... one year into the Covid crisis and Rotary are doing what we can to feed as many as we can... Big thanks goes to the people who have donated to this Weeboon appeal Please help if you can. Every little you give goes a long way to help

Last Friday was our Rotary Food4Life day which meant that we went out and about in the local villages to distribute food to those in need. Once again, the Asajan Festival team, together with Sons of the Moon, and Perfunction, donated the funds from their fabulous event to allow us to purchase the supplies. The Rotary team can’t do this alone sp many thanks also go to help from Christopher Bader, Fabian Dresens and Alison Bass amoung meny others

This week we were able to supply 30 families with food to last for 2 weeks courtesy of the remaining amount donated by the Asajan Festival together with Sons of the Moon, Perfunction. Christopher Bader, Namwan and Alison Bass again helped with the distribution

Last week we provided essential foods to another 30 families.  To continue this work we desparately need more donations.  7,500 THB = approx. 325 AUD, 206 EUR, 250 USD, 185 GBP is all it takes to feed 30 families - PLEASE give what you can