i can see!

Sight for Students

Many thanks to Sai Jai Thai, Rotary Japan, EGAT and especially Wankaew for all their help in bringing eye tests and glasses to our students and teachers in Phayao. We had around 600 students and teachers show up and be tested; many students walked away with brand new glasses! Here's how the process worked:

1. Registration2. Look really close at the eye

3. Eye chart4. Computer diagnosis

5. Try on a pair of glasses!

Photo Scavenger Hunt

In America, children often go on "scavenger hunts" to compete to be the first to find a list of things and win a prize. A photo scavenger hunt is when you have to take a picture of those things to be the winner. Today in ELF Club we had a list of items in English that teams of girls had to find and photograph. Here is some of what they had to find and photograph:

A ball

A smile

A flag

A map

The letter "T"

A teacher

The team that won!

A trip to Bangkok

The best part of last week's events was that three of our students came from Phayao to Bangkok for the first time ever! They were thrilled with CentralWorld's many stores and sights, but were mainly excited to ride escalators up and down and up and down.We got to show them their first McDonald's, took them on their first BTS ride and took them to an amusement park. It was a really great adventure and we're grateful to them for helping us out at the Cut-a-thon!

they loved the escalators the best

performing traditional Thai dance

they met a Thai celebrity!

presenting ELF founder with a thank you gift

sawatdee Ronald!

arriving at Siam Park

the water park was a huge hit!

CentralWorld Cut-a-thon

ribbon-cutting to open the event!

ELF staff

stylists making donations

fortune-telling

thanks to the students who came from phayao to perform at the show

some of the great Paul Mitchell and Pivot Point staff

this guy got 12 inches cut off his hair!

Thanks to not only our stylists and volunteers but also to our sponsors Paul Mitchell, Pivot Point, CentralWorld, Hair Magazine, Yu sports drink, and Dairy Home yogurt

CUT-A-THON!!!
Wednesday, November 4 from 11 am to 8 pm
CentralWorld Bangkok, First Floor "Dazzle" Area
Come get your hair cut by talented Paul Mitchell stylists for a cause (ours!).

See you there!

Cut-A-Thon Fall 2009

ELF excitedly announces its second Cut-a-thon fundraiser for the year! This event will take place on Wednesday, November 4th from 11:00 am to 8:00 pm on the first floor of the CentralWorld Plaza shopping mall in Bangkok. Come by to get your hair cut and styled, to listen to great music and earn prizes all in support of our cause. Please email elfthai@gmail.com for more information!

ELF Club Dancers

ELF Scholarship Ceremony 2009

Today was the best day of ELF's year! We gave scholarships to a brand new group of 130 seventh grade students. Combined with the continuing students from years past, we gave out a record 357 scholarships. Thanks to our staff and donors for making this day possible. Many of our high school girls helped with the event and our ELF CLUB group from Baan Ka put on a traditional Thai dance. It was a great day to connect with students, teachers and the community.

Kim and a high school scholarhip recipient and volunteer

Our distinguished speakers including founders Michael and Panit and Phayao's Vice Governor

ELF Club girls!

Constance excited about scholarships

Michael really wanted to take care of this little girl

excited about scholarships!

Hiding from the camera

These students are an exception to our age requirement; they are all HIV+

ELF Staff

Empowering Women and Girls

New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof wrote a book about how the empowerment of women is not only beneficial for women but is also vital to the world's security and economy. Here at ELF our programs are designed to do exactly that; to empower Thai girls through funding and education to make sure that they can live safe, productive lives. Here is a quote from the book:

"IN THE 19TH CENTURY, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape.

Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater. “Women hold up half the sky,” in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that’s mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it’s not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos. There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution."

You can read an excerpt from the book here.