Vol. XIV No. 51
December 22, 2006

Christmas comes early for one family in Isaan

In November, Peter Rottmann, past president of Rotary Club Krasang-Buriram visited Pattaya to attend a Rotary meeting and meet up with Malcolm and Christina Boden from the Charity Club of Pattaya. He wanted to ask if they could provide any help with a boy he had come across in the Buriram-Krasang area.

(L to R) Peter Rottmann, Vic King, Christina Boden and John Garbutt at the official presentation of the new wheelchair.
The boy is 12 years old and he lives with his widowed mother and his 5 year old sister. His father was a rice farmer who died of mouth cancer. Soon after his father’s death he began complaining of severe headaches. His mother took him to the hospital and they found he had a brain tumour.
He has since endured 3 operations, which has left his mother in debt and unable to work as she has to stay home and look after her two children. After the third operation the boy was left severely disabled, with no sitting balance, blind, dumb and incontinent.
He and his mother cannot leave the house as she cannot move him and she has no one to take care of her son. She did borrow a normal wheelchair, but that wasn’t suitable due to his inability to sit without proper support. He sits tied on a sun lounger all day, as this is the only thing his mother can do to stop him falling off.

Peter Rottmann, past president of Rotary Club Krasang-Buriram, brought this photo to the Charity Club of Pattaya, which prompted the club, the Queen Victoria Inn and the Lord Nelson to raise funds to buy the family a proper wheelchair.

Peter gave Christina the photograph you see here. After their meeting with Peter, Malcolm and Christina went straight round to see Vic King, the Charity Club’s treasurer and owner of the Queen Victoria Inn to discuss how they could raise funds to help. Vic then showed the picture to John Garbutt of the Lord Nelson.
As soon as they saw the photo and heard the terrible plight of this boy and his family, they got together and between the Lord Nelson and the Queen Victoria Inn the two bars raised enough for the Charity Club of Pattaya to purchase a special wheelchair that is light weight, lies back, has head support, seat belts to hold him in, foot rests and leg supports.
Peter Rottmann had come to Pattaya on Saturday Dec 9th to attend the Charity Club of Pattaya’s Christmas party at Jameson’s for the children of the Camillian Centre. Peter was very moved when the Charity Club told him that he would be taking the chair back with him sooner than he expected and that a presentation had been arranged at the Lord Nelson Soi 6 with Vic and John, as soon as the children’s party ended, as it was the two bars that raised all the money.
Peter said, “It will be a wonderful surprise for the mother and her son this week when I turn up with the chair. She knows nothing about this and neither did I!”
Thanks to the money raised at the Lord Nelson and the Queen Victoria Inn, Christmas has come early for one family; they will surely enjoy getting out and about, shopping, visiting friends and relatives, something they haven’t done for a long, long time.