K9 Trip to CHSAthai

K9 Club at CHSAthai Stray Animal Shelter (Service & Activity)

Investigation:

In my second year leading the K9 Club at Wells International School, once again we have organized a trip to visit CHSAthai (Compassionate House for Stray Animals in Thailand) located in Saraburi, Thailand which consists of 1400 dogs and 400 cats. The main goal of the trip is to help out and create a promotional video for the shelter to help publicize the shelter as well as a chance to earn new experience and have fun. I started to plan for the trip at the end of October where I started constantly communicated with my co-leaders, members, club advisor, and the amazing owner of the CHSAthai shelter.

Preparation:

By the end of October, K9 Club has confirmed by asking official permissions from the school to allow the trip to happen. As the main leader of this trip, I started ahead of time in early November and started preparing by creating documents about the choices of accommodation with prices, location, benefits, and pictures. I also contacted each hotel to explain that we are going in a big group to see if they could provide us with any special discount/promotion. The hotel choices are then sent out to the K9 Members group with Advisor to vote on which accommodation will be the best fit.

In the following weeks, I also created documents such as the rooms of the members while trying to fit everyone with their desired roommates. I also contacted the owner weekly to talk about the goals and tasks that he wants the students to complete. I listed out the six main tasks the owner wants done and created a shift-schedule so that all the members are able to enjoy all six tasks. Aside from the tasks, I created a schedule document including the time, activity, and details of everything we will do on the trip. By late November, I have finished all the required forms that Wells requires for a field trip to happen and reconfirmed with the school, K9 Advisor, and owner of the shelter about the trip. I have also set up a donation box infront of the school where people could donate animal's foods, accessories, and other necessities. Two week before the trip, I talked with Ms. Ann constantly and booked four vans on a discount for the upcoming trip. Lastly, I created a K9 Trip Checklist which has been sent out to the messenger group to help members pack all the essentials for the trip.

Action:

The K9 CHSAthai Trip took place on December 8-10, 2019. Everyone followed the K9 Trip Schedule to meet at the school lobby at 8:45. With the cooperation of everyone, we were able to leave Wells at 9:00. At the shelter, our Wells community toured and played the shelter on Day 1. On day 2, we split into groups and completed the assigned tasks by shifts. The tasks ranged from garden work such as planting trees, pruning trees, making holes in the soil (to insert organic insecticides) to organizing the shelter. The work requires lots of energy working in the hot sun but everyone was motivated and did our best. On the last day, we split into groups and did our final touches on the tasks. Lastly, the K9 Club of Wells happily donated 17,000 baht to the shelter.

Reflection:

After the trip, it made me think about how people and animals are struggling somewhere else and it's very hard for them to ask for help whether it's financial assistance or for some publicity. CHSAthai is a shelter located in Saraburi, which is north-east from Bangkok. It is pretty far and CHSAthai is not as famous as other stray animal organizations in Bangkok. Every month, CHSAthai needs money for animal’s expenses such as food supplies. With our close relationship with the owner of the shelter, K9 takes this chance to collaborate yearly with CHSAthai to donate money. This trip, members voluntarily filmed and edited promotional videos for the shelter. A few weeks after the trip, the final promotional videos were sent to the owner of the shelter. The owner was able to use this to publicize the shelter on social media.

This is one of the promotional videos and slide show of memories we had from the trip. Video by Pam (above)