Our main focus in recent years in Education has been on the establishment of Infants' Centres. The first project was at Ban Mae Pon, Chomthong, Chiangmai. From modest beginnings as a bamboo, thatched roof structure, this project progressed in 2004 to a purpose-built brick building, complete with toilet and kitchen facilities. The funding for this came mainly from former Gordonstoun School volunteers and their families and friends. The official opening took place in early July, and HE Khun Suraphol Kiatchaiyakarn, the local MP, officiated, in the presence of the 2004 Gordonstoun Thailand Water Project Team and hundreds of villagers.

In July 2006, once again in the presence of a Gordonstoun Team, the second project was officially opened in Ban Phamon, Doi Inthanon National Park, Chiangmai. This project was financed by the family of Carlo Berardi, a former pupil at Gordonstoun and a volunteer on a previous water project. Carlo and his father were present to officiate at the opening ceremony, together with the president of the local Tambon Admininistrative Office, himself a Karen.

These Centres enable mothers and fathers to work without the added burden of having to care for their 2 to 6 year old children, and frequently in adverse and even inimical climatic and physical conditions. Even more importantly, these Centres provide the children with an early grounding in written Karen, written and spoken Thai and English, basic mathematics, music and dance, and Thai and Karen culture. This enables the Karen children to compete on a "level playing field" with their lowland Thai peers when they enter the primary school system. Without these Centres, children meet their first Thai lessons at primary Grade 1, when all lessons are in Thai!

Both these projects have now been formally handed over to the Ban Luang Tambon Administrative Office and the Ministry of Education. This means that the Foundation no longer has to find the budget for salaries, utilities, and school meals. We do, and always will, keep in close contact with the teachers in charge of these projects, and will assist them in whatever way they require in future years. These teachers are all Karen women university graduates with further degrees in education. Their assistants are Karen women with a minimum of a High School diploma.

We intend to establish two further Infants' Centres in 2008. One will be at Ban Mae Klang Luang in Doi Inthanon National Park, and the other will be in Ban Na Kian village in Omkoi District of Western Chiangmai.