HDF’s co-founder and president is Father Joe Maier, C.Ss.R., a Catholic Priest in the Redemptorist Order, who came to Klong Toey in 1972 as the Parish Priest in the Slaughterhouse neighborhood. Father Maier joined with Sister Maria Chantavarodom in 1973 to start the Human Development Foundation for their poor neighbors of all religions. The community served is primarily Buddhist with a small minority of Muslims and Christians. The HDF operates under the guiding principal of helping the poor help themselves, with a primary focus on children. Core programs include:
• Education of slum children: Sixteen slum kindergartens in Bangkok; one kindergarten for ethnic Moken children in Ranong Province; one special school for street children (Janusz Korczak School); and over 300 education sponsorships for the very poorest children of all ages.
• Child Protection: Homes and shelters for 70 children; a legal aid center and a citywide outreach program for street children.
• Combating AIDS: i) Sheltering children. Over 50 children are currently living with HIV/AIDS in our five Mercy homes). ii) Home-based care in over 60 slum communities. iii) a comprehensive education/outreach program throughout the city. iv)Capacity building: our home care social workers train other AIDS organizations in Thailand, Laos, and along the Burmese border.
• Community Services: Credit Unions, Micro-loans, Housing, Emergencies, and Outreach. Historically, all HDF programs grew out of a slum shack in Fr. Maier’s Klong Toey parish. This shack was turned into a kindergarten in 1973 for the education of the slaughterhouse children. Following the success of its first school, HDF opened dozens of additional kindergartens throughout the city’s slums. In recent years, HDF has handed over many of its longest-serving schools to the communities that now are capable of supervising the education of their own children. These communities have been able to grow stronger in large measure because they value the education of their children. Currently over 2,500 slum children attend HDF Mercy preschools. In total, over 40,000 poor children have graduated from HDF preschools and continued their education in formal government primary schools. In addition HDF sponsors the education of 50 children currently attending colleges and universities in Bangkok and abroad. In 1991, HDF started a shelter program for a dozen street children at its Mercy Center. All HDF child protection programs have expanded from the care of these original Mercy street children. Operating the only Legal Aid Centre dedicated solely to street children, HDF defends and protects homeless children daily at police stations, in courts, and on the streets. Following the tsunami of 2004, HDF began serving the poorest ethnic Mokan (sea gypsy) communities in the mid-southern provinces of Thailand. From 2005 to 2011, HDF sponsored the education of over 500 Mokan children in Phuket and Phang-nga Provinces. The foundation still works closely in the areas of health and education on one destitute island village in Ranong Province. For over 50 years, Mercy Centre has been a serene haven in the slums. Today it provides shelter for 180 children. It is home to the largest of HDF’s sixteen Mercy Kindergartens, the Janusz Korczak School for Street Children, and the administrative center of all HDF outreach programs. Neighbors in need drop in any time of day. Mercy’s doors are always open.
