Animal welfare

• Abandoned animals: Some 2,000 abandoned dogs at the Kanchanaburi Animal Shelter may soon be without food and medicine unless public help arrives soon.

Anti-drug campaigns

• Klong Toey: For the last 12 years Ameena Beedillae has worked tirelessly in her anti-drug crusade in Klong Toey slums.

Children

• Child workers: The Child Labour Project helps child workers get organised so they know their rights. It also campaigns with employers to give child workers educational opportunities to prepare themselves for a better future.
• Street children: The Volunteers Group for Children's Development helps young runaways in Chiang Mai to escape the dangerous path that leads to drugs and prostitution.
• Computer donations: Believing computer literacy is necessary in the Information Age, the Pattaya Computer Club resurrects old PCs to give the Kingdom's poorer school-children the tools they need to get ahead in life.
• Recycled bikes: Old, unwanted bikes can provide poor rural children with both a cheap way of getting to school and the chance for simple adventures.
• Glasses donations: Mettapracharak Hospital's Eyeglasses Bank in Nakhon Pathom province repairs donated glasses and distributes them to needy children with poor eyesight who cannot afford to buy spectacles.
• Drinking water: In an effort to provide enough drinking water for rural youngsters, the Office of Provincial Primary Education of Chai Nat province is carrying out the "Clean Drinking Water for Kids" project, supplying schools with water tanks and filters.
• Toy Bank: Your children's old and unwanted toys can bring a smile to the faces of less privileged kids through the BMA's Toy Bank programme.

Community development

• Ban Sapli: The Bangkok Post Newspaper Foundation rebuilt a school for the children of Ban Sapli in the South after it was destroyed by a typhoon in 1988. Now the economic crisis and drought are squeezing families in the area and the children need support to continue their studies.

Education

• Multiple handicapped children: Devoted teachers at the Home of Multiple Handicapped Blind Children are struggling to develop the handicapped youngsters' skills so they can achieve more in life.
• Blind students: The Vocational Training Centre for the Blind in Chiang Mai is in dire need of financial assistance so that the students can acquire the skills that will help them lead a fulfilling and independent life.
• Blind students: The blind students under the care of the Christian Foundation for the Blind might lose educational opportunities due to the economic slump and a decline in donations.

Environment

• Mangrove preservation: Run on a shoestring budget with teachers and students as volunteers, the Mangrove Ecology Study and Preservation Centre of Bang Tapoon Witaya School in Phetchaburi province aims at fostering environmental awareness among the young.
• Youth training: The Kanchanaburi Environmental Group believes the best hope for saving the environment is to plant a love of nature in young minds and to encourage young people to think critically about how their environment is used.

HIV/AIDS

• Medicine bank: Last year the government stopped subsidising virtually all Aids drugs. Now a group of HIV-infected patients in Chiang Mai are organising a medicine bank so they can help each other get access to the expensive drugs which can keep the deadly virus at bay.
• Aids babies: The Aids Babies Centre is Chiang Mai wants to make sure that the short lives of HIV-infected children are filled with happiness and love.
• Free milk powder: Government cuts to free milk-powder programmes mean more babies will get infected with HIV through their mothers' breast milk. The Phan Hospital in Chiang Rai is arking for donations of baby formula and bottles.
• Aids orphans: For many Aids orphans, the only family they have is their elderly grandparents and their relationship is often difficult due to the generation gap and financial hardship. The Sem Pringpuangkeo Foundation is helping Aids orphans get an education and cope with family problems.

Human rights

• Hilltribe people: The group of Palong hill people in Pang Daeng, Chiang Mai were arrested and jailed without proper charges as scapegoats of this year's forest fire destruction in the North.
• Bridge people: YMCA is helping the bridge people who are among the poorest of Bangkok's slum dwellers impove their quality of lives.

Projects under the royal patronage

Rural schools

• Klity: The Lower Klity village is located deep in Kanchanaburi's forests and the Karen children there find simply getting to school is their biggest stumbling block. Travelling from their village to school entails a long journey through the jungle, so the children must live at the school most of the year. They need money for food and educational supplies which their parents cannot afford.

Temple charities

The elderly

• Old folks' home: The Bethany Home in Ratchaburi province is trying to give the homeless elderly a place to call home.
• Old folks' home: A Buddhist monk, Phra Acharn Daoroeng Ajarakuno, Wat Nhong Hoi's deputy abbot, set up the Wat Nhong Hoi Age-Care Center for underprivileged elderly in the temple's compound.

Women

• Occupational health: Unskilled women workers suffer many occupational health hazards without proper medical care and compensation. They are fighting for a new law which would ensure safety and labour protection measures.
• Counselling: Social mores make it taboo for many young women in Chiang Rai's Paan district to openly discuss the problems thay face which range from poverty, generation gaps and working in the flesh trade. But the Sister's Club, or Soon Puea Nong Ying, has brought young women together to talk out solutions.
• Women and Children: The Good Shepherd Sisters are giving poor children and sex workers in Pattaya an education which will help them have a new beginning in life.