Chiang Mai International Rotary Club (CMIRC)-Kru Payu and Safe Child Thailand Children’s Water Safety and Drowning Prevention Program (CWSDPP)
Sponsored By CMIRC, The Swiss Lanna Society, The Safe Child Thailand Foundation, the British Community in Thailand Foundation for the Needy, and the Thai Thaim Foundation/Rotary Club of Park Rapids, Minnesota, USA
February Report
To start the new year, we recognized students who have completed our Children’s Water Safety and Drowning Prevention courses over the past six months. This year we had a ceremony for 110 - 4th graders at the Ban Chaeng Khu Ruang Elementary School in Phrao and a ceremony for 151 - 4th graders at the Wat Pha Paeng School in Chiang Mai. A total of 261 children in six months at our programs in Chiang Mai Province alone. This year we will approach 2,500 children taught survival swimming and water safety in the four years we have been in operation nationwide!!
Swiss Lanna Society
Our Chiang Mai Program has been fully funded by the Swiss Lanna Society Chiang Mai for the first 6 months of this year! They came out in force for the certificate ceremony for the 151 children on January 30 at the Wat Pha Pang School. 
The children came to the assembly from six Chiang Mai municipal schools to receive their Rotary course completion certificates, a Rotary Medal, a red Swiss cap, and a Swiss flag pin! Usually the medals are the biggest hit, but this time the Swiss hats won the popularity contest with the kids!!
In addition to Swiss Lanna Society (SLS) President Eveline Willi and Swiss Honorary Consul Marc Dumur there were six other SLS members present to help with the awards and from the Chiang Mai Municipality, Mr. Soontorn Yamsiri, Deputy Mayor of Chiang Mai Municipality and Mr. Suraphon Phububpha, Deputy Municipal Clerk of Chiang Mai Municipality. We really appppreciate all the support our CSWDPP has received from the highest officials in the Chiang Mai Municipality.
At the end, it was back to their home schools in the typical truck transportation in Chiang Mai. No yellow school buses here.
The British Comunity in Thmailand Foundation for the Needy (BCTFN) – CMIRC Water Safety and Drowning Prevention Program in Phrao is completed for this school year. We awarded certificates to the 110 BCTFN-funded 4th-graders on Monday, January 20th, in Phrao. 
I was joined by local BCTFN representative Ian Bushell and our local coordinators from the Warm Heart Foundation, Evelind Schecter and Khun Niam.
Ian gave a short speech and the children loved the recognition they received. As usual at these events, school administrators, teachers and staff joined in the celebration of the children’s accomplishments.
At that time, We were in the process of applying to BCTFN for a renewal of the full-sponsorship grant for this program for this year. With this bulletin being late, we just learned that BCTFN just approved our application and the program in Phrao will continue for another school year.
CMIRC-BanYa Migrant Learning Centre Program in Phuket Province
More great news to begin 2020, Visiting Rotarian Bob Ashley from Rotary Club of Summit County, Colorado, USA has very generously offered to fully fund a new program at the BanYa Migrant Learning Centre in Phuket Province. We are planning to begin the program in May of this year for fifty 4th graders living in the migrant community. This will be the first CWSDP Program to operate in Phuket Province under the auspices of CMIRC. It was initially funded by an Australian AID Grant.
Safe Child Thailand has been our most significant non-CMIRC program sponsor. We have been working with them for the past three years and hope to continue our collaboration in the future. There has been a significant change in the program staff at the U.K. headquarters of the Safe Child Foundation. We have recently submitted reports summarizing our past successes and lessons learned and we hope to be sharing some significant new plans with them later this spring.