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Work With Us
The Phuket Has Been Good to Us Foundation offers fellowship, internship, volunteer and paid positions in our English language program on beautiful and warm Phuket Island, Thailand. Click on the links for more information: Paid Positions- ** NOW HIRING - APPLY TODAY! ** English Teacher- Primary Grades (posted 29 May, 2008) Fellowship, internship, and volunteer positions Employer Name The Phuket Has Been Good To Us Foundation Contact Information Tom Doherty Director of Administration and Development 6/8 Nakatani Village, T.Kamala, A. Katu, Phuket, 83120 Thailand Tel: +66 (0)76-278-176 Fax: +66 (0)76-342-460 tomd@phukethasbeengoodtous.org Due to the unreliability of international surface mail, please direct questions, concerns, etc. to the foundation via email. How Can We Help? Please get in touch, if you need to, with questions, comments, requests for more information and anything else that we can help with. The Foundation will be happy to respond. Success Stories of our Interns and Volunteers: Why working with us can also be good for you! Chris Martin & CiCi Cheng, Volunteer Educators from the USA 
Chris and CiCi traveled all the way from Athens, Georgia (U.S.A.) to volunteer for the Phuket Has Been Good to Us Foundation. CiCi is entering her senior year at the University of Georgia and will be graduating next May with degrees in Political Science and Biochemistry & Molecular Biology. She has traveled extensively throughout the world with the financial aid of her university’s Foundation Fellowship scholarship, also volunteering as an English teacher in Tanzania last summer. Kamala School and PHBGTU have provided an amazing experience for CiCi to fuel her passion for giving back to underprivileged communities.
Chris received his Master’s Degree in Elementary Education in May 2008 from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He has worked as an educator in various fields, including music, ESL (English as a Second Language), and general education. He is beginning in a new position as a third-grade teacher at Oglethorpe Avenue Elementary in Athens, Georgia, for the 2008-2009 school year. Chris’s biggest goal as an educator is to help those in the most need, and he was thrilled to come to Thailand to work with the Foundation, which serves many disadvantaged students—the beautiful setting was a nice perk! While working at Kamala School, CiCi and Chris devised several units for use in week-long camp settings with residential children. The goal for these units is not only to foster English-language development, but to do so in a recreational setting that is engaging to these students. The units integrate students’ knowledge of local cultural issues and daily life with English lexicon to promote as much growth as possible in a short span within pro-social learning environments. Joy Spencer, President and C.E.O. of the Queen Alexandra Foundation, in Victoria, Canada 
“On my second trip to Thailand as a volunteer, I had the privilege of being introduced to the Foundation through a Rotarian in Patong Beach who was working as a teacher for Phuket Has Been Good To Us. I was very fortunate to be able to meet Kate Cope, the Director of Education for the Foundation, and able to observe and assist her in the classroom at Kalim School. She impressed me with her visionary model of service delivery for English, that follows the new teaching methods I had come to appreciate. I was also lucky enough to meet Tom McNamara at a Board meeting and his approach convinced me that this would be my next volunteer opportunity, if I were accepted.
Tom McNamara’s philosophy was most impressive in that he adheres to the philanthropic vision espoused by Chuck Feeney in “The Billionaire Who Wasn’t,” in that you “give a hand-up, not a hand-out.” A cornerstone of my profession is to give back to the industry. I had many mentors and it is my obligation to assist, in a volunteer capacity, other child and youth organisations that are at the beginning of their formation.” Leana Cabral, Fulbright Scholar, from Providence, Rhode Island 
Leana graduated from Spelman College as a Comparative Women’s Studies major with a concentration in film and visual studies. Also a Fulbright Scholar, Leana is a native of Providence, Rhode Island, in the U.S. A.
As volunteer with the Foundation in early 2008, Leana co-taught at Kamala School and assisted with the Foundation’s ‘Be An Angel’ Christmas fund-raising campaign.
Nuala Cabral, Video and Film maker, from Providence, Rhode Island 
“Volunteering with the Phuket Has Been Good To Us Foundation for three weeks in January 2008, was a rewarding and memorable experience. My project was to produce a teacher training video to be incorporated into training workshops for Thai teachers interested in the foundation’s unique teaching approach. Helping as a teacher assistant during my first week, allowed me to jump right into the program, learn the expectations and meet the students whom I’d be filming soon after. The second week I filmed classroom lessons and b-roll (footage of the school yard, and visuals in the classroom). On the third week we did narration, and I edited and completed the video.
My favorite aspect of my volunteer experience, was working with the dynamic team of teachers, volunteers and administrators who are committed to the student’s learning and personal development. Despite the challenge of language barriers, teachers taught with enthusiasm, creativity and tenacity, which inevitably rubbed off on their students. Volunteering with the foundation was inspiring, fun and rewarding. I felt I was able to contribute my energy and skills usefully, while gaining new knowledge, a broadened perspective and fantastic new friends. To many Westerners, Phuket is known as a place where the Tsunami struck and destroyed in 2004. To me, it is so much more. It is a place where resilience, tenacity and cooperation flourish. It is a place where children smile, hope and dream, despite the suffering they have experienced. It is a place where volunteers are welcomed warmly, appreciated, and put to work! I thank the Phuket Has Been Good to Us Foundation, for this unforgettable opportunity to both give and to receive.” Hazel Roberts and Gary Gleavey, graphic designers from the U.K. 
The Foundation’s first text book, “English is Good For You,” was designed by Hazel and Gary, who worked closely with author, Kate Cope. Hazel and Gary donated their free time over a six month period to produce the book, which contains over 400 drawings.
Hazel is a graphic designer for Warrington Collegiate, with a BA First Class in Fine Arts from the University of Wales. She began her career as a painter. A specialist in education marketing, Hazel has produced advertising material for cinemas and billboards. She has won the “FE First” and “Heist” design awards, for college prospectuses. 
Gary is a designer for the Brindley Arts Centre in Runcorn. Educated in Fine Art, graphics and multi-media, Gary has been a desk top publisher of children’s books, publicity material for children and young people. Gary is also an accomplished photographer in the field of education marketing and industrial photography; he has produced CD and book covers. His other skills include website design and video production. Ian Prior, Jean Prior and Ethel Sellers, retired family from York in the U.K. 
“Having persuaded firstly my husband to take early retirement at the tender age of fifty and then my eighty-three year old mother to join us, we moved to Thailand. Why Phuket? Well, if you live here you already have all the answers to that question.
I soon found that I really missed my charity work in the U.K., where I raise funds towards deaf children’s education, and I sought something equally fulfilling here. I found that the Phuket Has Been Good To Us Foundation was working in Kamala School, teaching basic English to young children, to improve their opportunities in later life. 
As a result, the three of us, yes, including Ethel, plus our neighbour, Sally, now act as part-time volunteers, assisting the full-time teachers with English lessons at Kamala School. Many of the children there carry heart-wrenching stories and, as orphans, reside at the school. Deprived of the usual love and attention from a family environment, these children ask for nothing, but their faces light up when you make time for them and hugs are so warmly received and returned.
The teaching methods are necessarily slow and repetitive; the real benefits will probably only be seen years down the line. However, any input, no matter how small, is better than none, in trying to “make a difference.” 
Although none of us has any formal teacher training or experience, we are more than happy to attend school twice a week, to help in any way that we can. Our reward? Apart form the hope that in the future we might just have made a small, but positive difference to their lives, it really comes down to the appreciation shown by the children in those smiles and hugs. Perhaps you would like to join us in trying to “make that difference.” Rick and Anne Gartland, supporters of the Books4Phuket project and school volunteers, from Grosse Ile, Michigan 
Rick Gartland, recently retired from the motor industry and is enjoying spending more time at his second home in Nai Hahn, Phuket. When not in Thailand, he resides on a cold, chilly island called Grosse Ile (French for "big island"). His passion is book collecting and he seeks out books on the golden age of travel in the 1920's, specifically Asian travel. His wife, Ann, has now forbidden him from bringing any more books home, and he has taken up the new hobby of supplying English children’s books to people interested in learning English.
Rick linked up with the Phuket Has Been Good To Us Foundation through the Rotary Club of Laguna Phuket. He has supplied several hundred carefully chosen books to date, from a list designed to meet the English learning needs of children in Phuket’s government schools. Rick sources them from book sales in the U.S., and is delighted to be able to fill the library shelves at Kamala and Kalim Schools with educational books seeking a second life. 
Rick and Ann were volunteers in February and March 2008 and came armed with a host of materials for running extra-curricular activities for the children at both schools. The activities included necklace, bracelet and paper airplane making classes, together with book mark-making and a captivating activity about "How Books Get To Kamala School," which used simple words and pictures to To read more stories about the Foundation's volunteers, click here On behalf of the Phuket Has Been Good To Us Foundation, we are thrilled at the prospect of working with as many of you as possible. This is a wonderful cause in a beautiful place, and the children of Phuket cannot wait to meet and learn from you! | |
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