Maehongson Children Home
An orphanage built for the children living in the mountains in Maehongson, .
This project started in 2012 when a Malaysian forest monk Ajahn Cagino, who has been wandering in the mountainous region of Maehongson for the last 17 years, went to Kuala Lumpur to raise fund for a children home he intended to set up for orphans he saved from the remote mountain villages where they lived. He raised enough money to buy a piece of land flanked by mountains and a river and cultivated with rice paddy. A few architects and designers from KL chipped in to help him design and fund (US$400,000) the construction of the children’s home. The home, a longhouse of 164m long x 7m wide with a roof garden for vegetable farming, was completed within 1.5 years and started operation in early 2014, it can accommodate up to 100 children. And the home is now run by the Dhammagiri Foundation. The group also approached other property owners around the area to let them rent their homes out during non-peak seasons and use the rental income to sustain the operation of the orphanage.