What We Do

Borderless Friendship WA currently supports more than 380 hill tribe children across various locations in Northern Thailand. These children come from remote mountain villages, where access to basic services is often limited or non-existent.

To support them, we provide hostel accommodation in multiple areas — safe and welcoming places where children have access to nutritious food, healthcare, and education.

Citizenship and Human Rights

Many of the children we support do not have Thai citizenship. Without it, they are denied access to vital services such as healthcare, education, and the ability to move freely within the country. We assist with the complex, bureaucratic, and expensive process of applying for citizenship — a step that can profoundly change a young person’s future.

Access to Education

Historically, it was rare for Hill Tribe children to attend school, and even rarer for them to progress to secondary or tertiary education. Today, every child in our care is enrolled in a local school and attends daily. Education is the key to breaking cycles of poverty and marginalisation.

We also provide financial assistance in the form of scholarships, supporting hundreds of hill tribe students including 100+ young women who have received a Paola Ferroni Education Scholarship.

Hundreds of hill tribe teenagers and carers have enjoyed the weekend Mooditj program (see video clip in Education) - learning about sexuality and relationship education. This program is the centre piece of indigenous health and relationships training. It is one of the protective factors against becoming an ‘early parent’ and the terrible issue of sex trafficking.

Please take 2:30 mins to watch this moving and informative short film, Every child, every conflict produced by Save the Children (they have a bigger budget than us!)

Suffering is universal and these conflicts are happening around the World.

Our work supports many children who have been affected and displaced by the war in Myanmar especially at the Akha hostel. These children come to the hostels and:

  •  have to learn Thai to be able to go to school;

  •  have no Thai identity ID; and

  •  healing begins from emotional and physical effects of trauma because of the love and nurturing of the hill tribe carers and visitors.

Please support our life changing work with hill tribe children.

Our Impact

Some of the outcomes we are proud to have achieved include:

  • Supporting more than 380 children with safe accommodation, meals, and education

  • Annually awarding tertiary education scholarships for 50+ young people

  • Facilitating numerous Mooditj relationship and sexuality education workshops

  • Developing and irrigating farmland to grow crops and providing safe water

  • Helping several hostels become self-sufficient, raising fish and cultivating rice, mushrooms, and vegetables

  • Providing urgent medical care, dental support, and health assessments through medical teams

  • Distributing mosquito nets, bedding, clothing, and food to children and families in need

  • Successfully building and running a sponsor-a-child program, connecting donors directly to the children they support