Every 2 weeks Siam-Care visits a woman’s prison close to Bangkok. We meet many woman, who all have their own story. We would like to introduce you to Ang, a 33 year old mother of 2 children and sentenced to 8 years in prison.
Siam-Care’s goal for the prison project is two-fold. First of all we teach the inmates about HIV and other sexual transmitted diseases. In this way we help the inmates to protect themselves and to prevent the virus from spreading. Our second goal is to encourage woman and give them some love. Often prisoners have no one visiting them, our staff are the only people from the outsite world they see. Ang has two children, but their father, Ang’s ex-husband, doesn’t want the children to visit their mother.
A little distraction
Today we start with a game, to break the ice. Ang has a big smile on her face and is one of the most fanatic people in the game. She doesn’t win, but this doesn’t matter to her. She is happy that Siam-Care brings her some distraction from her boring prison life. She was arrested 3 years ago, because she was selling drugs. Forced by poverty, Ang was tempted to make some ‘easy money’. Her children needed to eat and Ang couldn’t find a regular job. She was caught by the police the very first time she delivered drugs to a customer.
HIV-infected since 14 years ago
Back to today’s session. During the training about HIV Ang listens carefully. She is HIV-infected herself, since she was 19 years old. Her children are not infected, because she always took her medication. Ang askes many questions and zealously makes notes. She wants to know every detail about the virus, so that she can prevent it from spreading.
Moments to treasure
After our session, before our staff goes back to Bangkok, Ang comes to our staff. She shares that she is a Christian and that is very thankful she can talk to other Christians (our staff). She asks us to pray with her and cries while we do this. Ang says she feels encouraged by our visits and that she is happy that we look after her. We only see her once every two weeks, but for her these moment are something she treasures. She feels loved and not so alone. There is not much we can do for her besides visiting her, but sometimes the little things we can do to encourage somebody, is just enough to keep somebody going.
