Mike Staples

It is truly easy to admire Mike Staples.  He has faced and vanquished a fierce adversary and he is full to the very brim with compassion for those less fortunate than himself.  Now he spends his days enjoying his family and dealing with a huge extended family of his own choosing, to whom he devotes copious time and energy. A more charitable man I cannot remember having met.

Mike Staples was born in Dar es Salaam, in what was then Tanganyika, a British mandate in East Africa. His mother was born just south of the great Mount Kilimanjaro, also in Tanganyika, which eventually became the modern-day country of Tanzania.  Mike’s dad was a British man who served on troop ships during WWII and ended up in Dar es Salaam after the war. The family of 4, including an elder brother 18 months Mike’s senior, moved to Kenya when Mike was 5 years old.

Mike feels a very strong attachment to Kenya.  He has vivid memories of spending nearly a whole day in a huge reserve, before eventually spotting wild elephants, and of lions lying languidly in the sun as the safari vehicles rolled past. Mike also recalls the fun he and his brother had in their last house in Mombasa, whacking golf balls into the Indian Ocean then waiting for the tide to retreat so they could don their snorkels to retrieve them.  I could tell from the way Mike spoke about Kenya that he has what some would regard as a spiritual attachment to the country and its wildlife. Unless you have plenty of time, don’t ask him about his hero Sir David Attenborough.

Yet these countries were to be just the very beginning of Mike’s journey around the world.  He had a career in international banking and rose steadily through the ranks.  He lived and worked in Hong Kong, Bahrain, Oman, Sri Lanka, Dubai, Singapore and finally Bangkok before deciding that he had had enough of the life of a high-flying corporate banker, in his own words, “Corporate bulls##t is not my deal”.

After he abandoned what must have been a highly profitable career in 2004, Mike only had a few years before he embarked on the struggle of his lifetime, with a cruel and often merciless opponent, who had Mike on the ropes, and the operating table, on numerous occasions.  Mike is thankful, despite his battles with a variety of cancers, to still have a great zest for life.  He now takes good care of his health, especially the old “slip, slop, slap” to evade skin cancer. If he could give his 15-year-old self a single piece of advice, it would be to “Do as your mother tells you”, when it comes to being in the sun.

Mike has lived in Hua Hin since 2008, when he was still recuperating from his confrontation with cancer.  Hua Hin was quite a different place back then.  He was still regularly commuting back and forth from Bangkok in the early days as his Thai wife was still working there, and he recalls bringing groceries back from the capital because the luxury of shopping malls and Western stores didn’t exist in Hua Hin. Mike was immediately drawn to Hua Hin on his first holiday from Bangkok in 1995.  What attracted Mike so much was Hua Hin’s resemblance to Mombasa in Kenya.  He felt immediately at home.

Living just north of Hua Hin now, with his wife and daughter, Mike has established solid connections within the local community, both Thai and expat, that have made him the ideal choice for the demanding but hugely rewarding role he now undertakes with the extended family previously mentioned.

As Deputy President of the Bright Dawn Foundation, which was established as a registered Thai charity foundation in 2010, Mike’s job description is certainly not set in stone.  The Foundation has a sterling Chief Operating Officer who deals with its day-to-day functioning, but Mike’s role is less clearly defined. It definitely includes working to raise the profile of Bright Dawn, managing the promotional material and making the necessary connections which help assure the Foundation continues to succeed and thrive. He has long been involved with the Foundation in peripheral roles but took on the Deputy Presidency in 2020, as it’s “minister without portfolio”.

So, what is the Bright Dawn Foundation, you may well ask?  It is a charity whose mission is to “offer a hand up, not a hand out”. It focuses on improving the lives of Thai children from low-income families in the Hua Hin area, through the provision of healthcare and educational support to the children via 5 local primary schools.

The work of Bright Dawn is multi-focused.  Healthcare for the over 700 students involved includes medical check-ups as well as eye tests, the provision of clean water and 2 meals each school day, the regular delivery of dental care kits and first aid training for the teachers.  The educational support to the local schools has included supplementary English language teaching with a particular focus on reading as well as spoken English, and the construction and furnishing of computer classrooms where students can work on developing practical, vocational life skills to help them become desirable employees, and so avoid perpetuating entrenched poverty.

A simple look at the website will convince you that the Foundation is doing a fantastic job.  The data is in.  Some of the children are achieving above the national standard in English, with one school achieving well on almost all subjects. The children are all experiencing the damaging effects of interrupted education because of the pandemic and will certainly benefit from the long-term support they get from the Bright Dawn Foundation.  But they have clean clothes to wear, to match their beaming smiles.  Malnutrition is a thing of the past, even through the pandemic when the children’s immediate needs were still regularly met, and often those of family members as well.

The emotional, social and mental wellbeing of this huge, extended Bright Dawn family is also well-catered-for with annual sports days, fun days, frequent guest visitors and more. Bright Dawn should be viewed as a great example of how an umbrella approach to child wellbeing can be accomplished.

But even more impressive is that the work and financial records of the Foundation are transparent in their accountability.  Sponsors are assured that their donations are indeed making a real difference, as the Foundation has shown it is able to use 93% of its incoming funding to the direct benefit of the children and teachers involved, by keeping administrative and other costs very lean indeed.

Many of the Foundation’s sponsors are regular supporters, some with a history of over a decade now as donors.  This year the Royal Coast Riviera Club will be directing its charity baht to BDF.  The Foundation makes great achievements happen on a budget of only $US 200,000 per annum, and is always looking for more corporation/organisational donors.  Please don’t hesitate to pass on this information if you know anyone looking for exactly the right place to float their organisation’s charity contribution.

All of this is ably supported by Mike’s humanity, empathy, resilience and commitment to the welfare of the children.  He is just waiting for the day he is served well, in good English, in a local business by a young person he recognises as someone from the Bright Dawn family. Although Mike admits to being an introvert, and used to claim to be the laziest person on Earth, the truth is, he cares, deeply. He told me how he cried over the recent death of Dom, the soccer team captain of Chiang Rai cave rescue fame.  He feels a pull to encourage people to do what they enjoy, within bounds, because he wants to see people happy and fulfilled.  With his own daughter, he firmly resists the urge to live vicariously through her, because to do so would be at the expense of her happiness, which is sacrosanct.

In his moment of ultimate happiness, you would likely find Mike camping on the beach at the end of a deserted headland on the coast of Oman.  He would be looking out to sea, with nothing in sight but the water and the clear star-filled sky.  Pleasantly sore from his round of golf and with a full tummy from indulging in cheese, roast lamb and roast potatoes and Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate accompanied by a bottle of rosé, by his side would be a very cherished possession, his box of carefully preserved and researched records of his family history. 

If this scene seems strange to you, it should.  This is Mike’s favourite place in the world, and his favourite things, not yours!  We should let him rest there a moment; he deserves it.