Mae Chi Pratin

During my sabbatical research, I discovered a short article in a book entitled Buddhist Women Swimming Upstream, that featured the first Buddhist girl's school, Dhamma Charini. I was happy to discover that this school, located in Ratchaburi Province, is just one hour away from Samaneri Dhammananda's Wat in Nakhon Pathom. Thus, on the day I hired a driver and car to take me from Bangkok proper to Wat Kalanyi, I also set out later in that day for the girl's school and then for a brief evening at the Santi Asoke temple, near Wat Kalanyi, before returning to Bangkok.

I was greeted by a young woman who went quickly to find Mae Chi Pratin for me. Since the Mae Chi did not speak any English, I also had to employ my driver to serve as a translator. After talking about the school, she gave me a tour around the complex and I met some of the girls. I was also followed by a pack of rather mean sounding dogs, who had, she informed me, just bitten someone in the previous week. This, along with the language barrier, made for a rather nerve wracking encounter. While I was there, I witnessed the girls out in the fields laying irrigation pipe. It looked strangely like Warren Wilson and I couldn't help but smile at the thought of our early farm school days when Christian missionaries sought to help poor Appalachian farm boys, that they might find other, more successful alternatives for their lives.

Here is what I found out about the school, as taken from a handout I was given:

The school is formally called the Dhamma Charini Widdaya Project and is funded by the Thai Nuns Institute, Paktor Chapter, Ratchaburi Province.

Background:

National development with the extreme emphasis on material progress has brought about numerous social glitches. The increasing gaps in terms of education and livelihood have enabled the rich to be well educated and to live a convenient life, but on the other hand, have robbed the rights to education and proper well-being of the poor. Many of these destitute and impoverished people have not faced only life difficulties, but have also been prone to being trapped into gambling, lured into cheap labour and/or forced prostitution, the trauma in which they found themselves physically and mentally abused and treated as slave labour, and in many instances, infected with AIDS or addicted to drugs. These problems are much exacerbated among the youth.

The Dhamma Charini Widday School has been established to tackle the issues, especially among the young women who lack the opportunity to be educated. The School has adopted many young women from poor backgrounds; many of them are either orphans or abandoned, coming from slums and broken homes. Here, they are offered the chance to study the high school curriculum and to practice and study Dhamma in a well-arranged setting that ensures their spiritual and academic, as well as their disciplinary progress. They are expected to graduate with the ability to rely on themselves, to be self-controlled, to get adapted properly in society and to perpetuate the teaching. After several years in operation, these ongoing efforts have proved to successfully prevent the problems and nourish these impoverished girls, who otherwise are prone to be exploited.

Objectives:

1. To provide and increase the opportunity of impoverished young women to be educated in both academic and Dhamma study and practice.
2. To develop quality of life of young women, and to stimulate and instill in them the importance of one's contribution toward oneself and society.
3. To train young Buddhists that help to sustain the teaching in the service of the religion and the nation.

Operational Guidelines:

1. The school provides academic education, which includes a common curriculum for high school students in four years (six years in normal schools) based on the requirements of the Non-formal Education Department. Attending the class everyday, the students are expected to be well informed and learned equally as their counterparts in outside society and to be good citizens in the future.
2. The school also provides Dhamma study of three basic levels and the Pali study so as to equip students with knowledge in Buddhism, which shall enable them to live a wholesome life.
3. The school offers spiritual training; the observance of the basic precepts, how to behave as an ordained nun (some of the students are not ordained as nuns), and how to meditate. The practice is carried out everyday so as to provide a proper foundation of good behavior of the students.
4. Skill training is provided including typing, computer skills, handicrafts, clothes-making, nutrition, farming, and first-aid to enable students to be self-reliant and to apply the knowledge to earn an honest and right livelihood.

Expected Results:

1. These young women are able to live in society with the sense of equal dignity with others and apply their knowledge and skills in the right way. Being self-reliant, these students are supposed to live a wholesome way of living contributing to their society as much as they can.
2. That these young women are free from all harms and are not exploited by vicious people.
3. That social problems in relation to the young people's vulnerability are prevented, including gambling, forced labour or forced prostitution, drug abuse, and AIDS infection.