Baan Dek Foundation

I volunteered with Baan Dek Foundation for 20 months on their Partnerships Team. From the very first day I had a warm welcome. I had an incredible experience getting a front row seat to understanding the complexities surrounding child protection, child rights, in the Southeast Asian context. Through Baan Dek I was able to see the effective role local actors can play in mitigating these risks. BDF's management team leads with the highest integrity and I learned a great deal about transparent financial systems, and coming from a fly by night, pull yourself up by the bootstraps start up perspective, I came to appreciate the role and value of policies, Standard Operating Procedures and other formal policies in place. Baan Dek also has an entire department dedicated to tracking impact and communications, which were important areas I was able to appreciate more close up when I was able to see all the work involved. I highly recommend BDF as a place to volunteer for a clear-eyed view of the pragmatic role local nonprofits can make in development.

Twice I volunteered with Baan Dek, each time for 2-3 months, and these were some of the most rewarding experiences I have had anywhere in the world. The team is amazingly professional and dedicated, and the value of the work quickly becomes clear.

Much of my work was building IT and database infrastructure in an office setting, but I also was privileged to visit the sites and observe the work being done with the local communities, as well as the various programs held at the BD headquarters. The positive impact quickly becomes clear, both through data monitoring and seeing and hearing from the participants themselves. One goes to work here with a dedicated sense of purpose, and goes home knowing they truly make a difference in the lives of many who face such incredible obstacles and challenges.

All the while, the team made me feel like one of them, helping with any logistics in travel or housing, and providing a great support network during my stay. Baan Dek is as good as it gets.

I have been volunteering with Baan Dek for 5 weeks, in the background, to support their system's architecture. A week ago, I was kindly invited to join on a fieldwork trip to understand better the work done.

During my fieldwork trip, I could experience the patience and dedication Baan Dek field staff had not only to support the children but also help their families understand what they are doing and how it will help. I appreciated how they pragmatically dealt with the challenges and got results. I also could experience first hand how the children loved the session and were eager to be visited again in the future.

I love the chance I have to make a difference and actually see how my work is being used to actually help the communities. It is also great to see how they continuously want to improve the process to always get more value for the children. I intend to support that process for a long time to come.

I volunteered with Baan Dek Foundation for 6 weeks, and they were some of the best weeks of my life. Everyone at Baan Dek is so dedicated to their work: they care so passionately about the beneficiaries and are always willing to go the extra mile.

The field work that I was able to observe always seemed like it was making a real, tangible difference in the children's/families' lives. The kids seemed so happy and excited when Baan Dek field staff came to their community. Baan Dek isn't just talking about good work, they're going out and doing it.

I have been volunteering with Baan Dek Foundation for 2 months now and I can say that I have fell in love with the work Baan Dek is doing and with amazing people who makes coming to Baan Dek so worth it. During my time, I worked with the Partnership Team but also helped other Team that had more urgent needs. Everyday always seemed to be busy and enjoyable because the work that Baan Dek does requires hard work and great passion. I am grateful for all the amazing Staff for creating an inclusive working environment, because being Hmong-American I have different values and preservative and knowing that is respected here makes me feel good about volunteering here. A regular week would consist of Monday meetings with all the staff for a weekly check in and everyone eats lunch together around noon. During that time we get to know each other further. Overall, there are friendly people here who care about their co-workers and working together to help the community of migrant children and their families. Baan Dek is always constantly moving forward to meet goals and set new one, so it very goal orientated. I've learn how make analysis with real life baseline and end-line feedback, support in researching for more ideas to help the team, working with technology applications for the non-informal education, and shadowing on field visit to make direct impacts in the community. Most importantly, learning how to work coherently and smoothly with my Social Adviser to make the best impact in supporting the children. There are many more great things to say about Baan Dek and my experience here, but overall extremely satisfying. With more donation, I believe Baan Dek further can create better programs for the community. I've heard of programs that used to exist but doesn't exist anymore because of the lack of funding, so I strongly believe that with more funding there will be greater programs to enhance the liveliness of the children in the construction camps.