Brisbane Courier Mail article on Sister Joan's Mission
Our lady of the slums
By Leisa Scott
April 14, 2007
The hungry dogs of the Slaughterhouse slum slink about on their early morning scavenge, sniffing at rotting plastic bags and every woman arriving to join the queue.
The women barely notice them, shifting their babies from one hip to the other and focusing on the gold four-wheel-drive parked 30 metres away.
Mangy dogs, opium addicts sprawled on the concrete, the stink of sewage and monsoonal rains are part of daily life in these slums. But the boot of the gold truck is only revealed once a fortnight.
The truck's owner is moving about at the top of the line, her attitude reflected in her no-nonsense outfit: garden variety short-sleeved shirt, black skirt, sturdy shoes and a small silver cross around her neck. Sister Joan Evans welcomes the women Thai-style, putting her hands together at her chest and bending her stout body forward. "Sawasdee-ka," she says to the line of mothers and grandmothers.
Their tense faces break into smiles. Life is tough in the slums of Bangkok, home to one-fifth of the city's six million residents, but this Catholic nun offers a small helping hand in the hard slog of survival. Every second Friday morning, at the edge of the dirt and gravel road, there are kind words from Sister Joan (even if the Australian expatriate gives the Thai language a mangling) and about $A1000 worth of milk formula in the back of her 4WD.
Breast may be best, but not when the mother has HIV, is too malnourished to produce milk or has to go to work straight after childbirth to put food on the table. In those cases, a newborn in the slums is lucky to be fed the foamy water in which rice has been boiled. Sister Joan recognised this years ago and started walking to the homes of a few new mums and giving them milk powder. Today, they come to her - all 100-odd of them.
For the full article, see - Courier Mail - Our lady of the slums.
By Leisa Scott
April 14, 2007
The hungry dogs of the Slaughterhouse slum slink about on their early morning scavenge, sniffing at rotting plastic bags and every woman arriving to join the queue.
The women barely notice them, shifting their babies from one hip to the other and focusing on the gold four-wheel-drive parked 30 metres away.
Mangy dogs, opium addicts sprawled on the concrete, the stink of sewage and monsoonal rains are part of daily life in these slums. But the boot of the gold truck is only revealed once a fortnight.
The truck's owner is moving about at the top of the line, her attitude reflected in her no-nonsense outfit: garden variety short-sleeved shirt, black skirt, sturdy shoes and a small silver cross around her neck. Sister Joan Evans welcomes the women Thai-style, putting her hands together at her chest and bending her stout body forward. "Sawasdee-ka," she says to the line of mothers and grandmothers.
Their tense faces break into smiles. Life is tough in the slums of Bangkok, home to one-fifth of the city's six million residents, but this Catholic nun offers a small helping hand in the hard slog of survival. Every second Friday morning, at the edge of the dirt and gravel road, there are kind words from Sister Joan (even if the Australian expatriate gives the Thai language a mangling) and about $A1000 worth of milk formula in the back of her 4WD.
Breast may be best, but not when the mother has HIV, is too malnourished to produce milk or has to go to work straight after childbirth to put food on the table. In those cases, a newborn in the slums is lucky to be fed the foamy water in which rice has been boiled. Sister Joan recognised this years ago and started walking to the homes of a few new mums and giving them milk powder. Today, they come to her - all 100-odd of them.
For the full article, see - Courier Mail - Our lady of the slums.
posted by SisterJoanTshirts at 3:32 PM
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