Global PACT Thailand

	General Information
	Program:	Training: Thailand
	Location:	Chiang Mai
	Language:	English & Thai
	Dates:	May 22 to June 18, 2010
	Housing:	Shared student residences
	Partner:	Chiang Mai Rajabhat University
	Program Fees:	$3,450 Program plus Group Airfare $2,000
	Admissions:	Online
	Deadline:	Rolling: Contact us for availability (732) 579-8500
	Notes:	4/2/10:  After that date airfare will still be available to be purchased based on live availability and pricing, and may not necessarily be with the group.  Contact us for details! Included: two meals daily, airfare, housing, transportation, entrances, medical emergency evacuation, and Global PACT course fees.  Not included: visa, personal basic medical insurance and personal expenses while in country.  *Program fee is subject to airfare taxes and fuel surcharges until ticketed. Airfare is from New York.

 Chiang Mai, Thailand

If you are not afraid of rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty, eating food you can’t pronounce and waking up to night sounds you can’t identify, Global PACT Thailand is for you. This Training program is not for the faint of heart or the "for-credit" tourist. There will be no clubs and no dancing till dawn. You will not spend your down time baking on the beach or shopping for silks and cheap electronics. Global PACT Thailand is a “full-contact” cross-cultural program in devel­opment. Accommodations are provided at a resort dedicated to stopping the AIDS epidemic in Thailand. Participants walk through rice paddies to interview farmers about their needs, listen to mothers talk about their dreams for their children's futures, dress and behave in keeping with local customs.

On the way home, students spend two days in Bangkok to see the temples, the klongs and night life, but for the duration of the program we will be in Mae Kachan, a small, rural town in Northern Thailand. Here a third of the population lives below the official poverty rate of 50 cents a day, and many children leave sixth grade for work in distant cities as sweatshop workers or prostitutes, which is a world away from the universal education we benefit from as children, let alone special support for those with ADHD; or learning difficulties, not to mention their age and the illegality of these roles. Away from the urban centers of Thailand, participants will also be far from concerns about Thai politics. Far from the glitzy, westernized tourist centers, we will have ample opportunity to observe the ravages of Burma’s distant civil war, environmental plunder and poverty, as well as the work of the international humanitarian community.