Our Visit to Dhammajarinee Witthaya School

By Serena Singhsathitsukh

We, the Today4Tomorrow team, recently had the honour of visiting the Dhammajarinee Witthaya School in Ratchaburi, Thailand, and want to share our experience as well as advocate for the school’s mission in hopes of reaching people beyond our team. 

After coming across and reaching out to the school, we primarily wanted our first visit to be with the director of the school, Dr. Aunampai Passakchai, in order to familiarise ourselves with the school’s objectives and also to gain a better perspective from those with managerial roles. This also presented us with the opportunity to donate the technological devices provided by our school as Dhammajarinee Witthaya School aims to expand their exploration with weaving technology into their education system. We were also fortunate enough to tour the entire school with Dr. Passakchai, where she was able to inform us of the many intricacies in the education received by the girls whilst showing us the different facilities at the school.

Being a boarding school entirely free of charge for the girls, it truly puts into perspective how fortunate a lot of us are regarding the support and position we have with our education. Even then, it was admirable to see how the girls persevered and found their hobbies and talents regardless of their backgrounds and situations. Seeing some of the artwork that the girls produced led us to ask questions regarding what we, as international school students, can do to help Dhammajarinee Witthaya School reach its goals. 

Dr. Passakchai recommended bringing in students from our schools to teach the girls English through various activities depending on the grade level of the girls, as the school provides all levels of education from primary school to high school. As we toured the school, we realised that a lot of the activities that the students completed for English mostly consisted of passive learning, thus resulting in a lower confidence level when it came to speaking the language. This therefore led to us brainstorming and finding possible ideas for the girls to learn English actively to not only build their language skills, but also their confidence in general which could be beneficial to them after their high school years, regardless of what they choose to pursue.  

Our visit ultimately concluded with a big lunch, where we were able to discuss potential ideas and activities that we will hopefully be able to implement in February when our exams, as well as their exams, are all over. These ideas and activities regard teaching English, donating necessities, as well as raising money and awareness. We still have lots to do in terms of planning, however, this visit gave us the essential background information we needed to support the school effectively.

Finally, we would like to thank Dr. Aunampai Passakchai and Dhammajarinee Witthaya School for this wonderful opportunity, where we were able to tour the school, build a positive relationship with them, discuss ideas and for the generous hospitality we were met with. We hope to keep you updated on any new information and any opportunities regarding Dhammajarinee Witthaya School , meanwhile, please do not hesitate to visit their website at (https://www.thaischool.org/) and support the school in any way that you can. 

You can also access more information regarding the school on this page of our website (https://www.today4tomorrowblog.com/portfolio-collections/my-portfolio/Dhammajarinee-Witthaya-School)