Making a Difference: Lufthansa Opens Drop-in Center in Pattaya, Thailand

Help Alliance, the employees’ aid organization of Lufthansa German Airlines, has opened a Drop-in Center in downtown Pattaya, to further extend help to more children and youth at risk and in difficult situations.

The new Drop-in Center in downtown Pattaya which has been constructed in collaboration with Help Alliance’s long-term partner Human Help Network Foundation Thailand (HHNFT) will provide needed basic necessities such as food, clothing, and medicines for an average of 150 children per month.

Apart from the basic necessities, children will also receive counseling, and the HHNFT team will also help evaluate the possibility of family reintegration, repatriation (in case of migrant or victims of trafficking), or referral to long term facilities like the Child Protection and Development Center in Pattaya, also supported by Lufthansa Help Alliance.

“In Pattaya and the nearby region alone, there are approximately 3,800 homeless children and at risk youth. With the new center, we will be able to help a good deal of children in need, offering real and essential services. We very much want to take this opportunity to thank our partner Lufthansa Help Alliance for their continued support,” said Mrs Radchada Chomjinda, Director of the Human Help Network Foundation Thailand (HHNFT).

The Drop-In Center is part of the four-part mission Child Protection Program that the project focuses on to help fight for children’s rights. This includes Outreach Work, The Drop-In Center, The Protection and Development Center, and Prevention Work. The goals are to provide overarching help in a variety of fields.

Lufthansa help alliance representative, Joachim Steinbach, said, “For more than 50 years Lufthansa has been continually flying to Bangkok. While Thailand has developed into a major business and tourist destination there are still people in need who do not benefit from this development - and children are certainly among the most vulnerable. We are more than happy that Help Alliance has been able to support the wonderful work of our partners in Thailand with roughly 1 million euros over the past 15 years.”

Help Alliance, Lufthansa Airlines’ employees' aid organization founded in 1999, has been a strong and reliable partner of HHNFT’s Child Protection Program in Thailand since its beginning, and has substantially supported the construction of the new Drop-In Center as well as the Child Protection and Development Center located in the periphery of Pattaya, to give more protection and security to the children.

Employees of Lufthansa in Bangkok as well as from abroad have frequently volunteered to support the Child Protection Program in Pattaya.

Other areas of support by Help Alliance in Thailand have included post-Tsunami relief measures near Khao Lak.

The organization has helped to construct the Yaowawit School, which was officially opened by Her Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn in April 2006.

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