Clean water in mountain schools, Braille machines for blind children, a rebuilt canteen for 303 students who'd been eating in classrooms for twenty-five years. A look at the Rotary Club of Bangkok's community work in recent years.
Rotary's community service isn't about grand gestures. It's about finding a real problem, getting the right partners together, doing the work, and moving on to the next one.
Here's a picture of what that has looked like for the Rotary Club of Bangkok over the past few years.
Clean Water
Safe drinking water for children is one of the most direct things a Rotary club can do. We've made it a priority for years.
In 2024–25, we partnered with the Rotary Club of Tokyo Shintoshin to install a clean water system at Wat Nong Luang School in Chiangmai Province. Testing had found the school's well water contained high dissolved solids, Coliform bacteria, and E. coli. The school had 96 pupils and 14 staff. Some parents could send their children with bottled water. Many couldn't. The joint project cost 110,700 Baht and was done by February 2025.
The same year, we started a second water project with the Rotary Club of Okegawa, Japan — installing systems at two schools in Bokluea district, Nan Province. Ban Boluang Sakha Huipong School serves 70 pupils; Ban Boluang School serves 124. Total cost: 176,700 Baht.
We've been doing this since at least 2008, when we partnered with clubs in Hua Hin and Osaka to install filtration units at twelve schools across Thailand, giving clean water to an estimated 2,411 students and teachers.
Children of the Forest: Getting Stateless Kids into School
Some of the most interesting work we've been doing involves children who legally have no recognised nationality.
The Children of the Forest Foundation runs a school in Sangkhlaburi, Kanchanaburi Province — near the Myanmar border — for children born in Thailand to parents who work on local plantations but do not hold Thai citizenship. Under Thai law, their children are often stateless. They may lack formal identification and face significant barriers to accessing services, as well as limited legal protection from trafficking or exploitation.
While all children in Thailand are entitled to access basic education, in practice stateless children often face administrative and language barriers. The Foundation's school provides Thai-language preparatory classes, helping children transition into the Thai government system. Once enrolled, they can obtain a student ID, which improves access to services and helps establish an official record of their presence in Thailand.
We started supporting the Foundation in 2022–23. By 2024–25 we were in our third year, and we'd joined with partner clubs from Germany (four clubs: Pforzheim, Pforzheim Schwarzwald, Ueberlingen, and Muehlacker-Enzkreis), Japan (Kushiro North), and the US (Palo Alto) to submit a Global Grant application. Total committed funding: USD 97,648.
For the Blind
In October 2024, our "Share the Love" fundraising concert raised money that went to the Foundation for the Blind in Thailand under the Royal Patronage of H.M. the Queen. Total: 631,998 Baht, spent on ten Perkins Brailler machines and twenty 55-inch classroom monitors for partially-sighted students.
The Foundation runs schools for blind children. The Braille machines and monitors go directly into classrooms.
Ban Rom Sai
Ban Rom Sai is an orphanage in Chiangmai that has been providing a home for children living with HIV since 1999. In the early years, it lost ten children to AIDS. Since then, with better antiretroviral treatment and proper nutrition, not one child has died — all seventeen children currently in residence are growing up healthy.
In September 2024, we renovated the orphanage's meeting room and provided uniforms, stationery, books, and shoes for each child. Budget: 100,000 Baht.
The Canteen at Ban Kungnonsaad
At Ban Kungnonsaad School in Udon Thani, 303 students from four surrounding villages had been eating in classrooms or under leaky roofs for over twenty-five years. The school's canteen was structurally unsound and kept flooding. Requests to the government had gone nowhere.
Working with the Bangkok Charity Orchestra and the Capco CSR Team, we demolished the old canteen and built a new one, fully equipped. It took two phases — 2023–24 and 2024–25. Total cost: 330,000 Baht. The kids now have a proper place to eat.
Disaster Response
When something goes badly wrong, we move fast.
In August 2024, flooding hit northern Thailand. We transferred 20,000 Baht to the Rotary Club of Pua in Nan Province — which was already on the ground — within days. Member contributions brought our total to 60,500 Baht, with the remainder going into the District 3350 Disaster Fund.
Seven months later, a major earthquake struck Myanmar on 28 March 2025. By 4 April, members had contributed 329,535 Baht — collected partly through the weekly Smilebox at the Thursday meeting — to the District 3350 Earthquake Disaster Relief Fund.
Both times, the pattern was the same: when the need is clear, the Club responds.
The Bigger Picture
Looking back across ninety-five years of community work, what stands out is the range and consistency of it. Dialysis machines for provincial hospitals. Motorcycles for border child welfare organisations. Cataract operations in rural Thailand. Clean water from Chiangmai to Chainat to Nan. English teaching scholarships for rural teachers.
No single project changes a country. But ninety-five years of steady, practical work — project by project — adds up.
To support our projects or find out about partnering with us, please get in touch.