A Chance to Share, Feel Solidarity: Navigating the Floods in Sangkhlaburi
Thailand is experiencing a severe monsoon season, with continuous heavy rainfall affecting many parts of the country, including the Baan Unrak community in Sangkhlaburi. After days of rain, the dam's water level has risen significantly, affecting many families living along the lake.
The road connecting Baan Unrak and the surrounding communities (150 households), has been cut off by the rising water. Electricity and phone signals have also been disrupted, leaving us temporarily isolated. Schools have been suspended, and our children have been unable to attend classes. With the rain showing no sign of stopping, everyone has remained on alert.
This area has not experienced major flooding since 2018. Eight years later, the water has returned, bringing uncertainty and disruption, but it has also brought our community closer together.
As the water rose, the whole community came together to find solutions. Every family contributed labour, sending someone to take part in the work, and Baan Unrak sent all of its available workers to join them. People went into the forest to cut and carry bamboo for the temporary bridge, often returning with cuts and scratches, but continuing without complaint.
Everyone contributed whatever they had. Those with boats offered to ferry people across the flooded areas; others provided fuel, tools, transportation, or their time and skills. Baan Unrak also took responsibility for providing the ropes, vehicles, and boats needed for the work, as well as a nurse to care for those who were injured along the way.
It was a true collective effort: everyone brought what they could, and together they worked to keep the community connected and moving. Building the bridge became one of the community’s most important priorities. It would reconnect their families and baanunrak to the village, and help daily life return to its normal flow.
But life could not wait for the bridge to be completed. Until then, there was always someone waiting by the water with a boat, ready to help people cross safely. Even without a bridge, the community found a way to remain connected.
Yet even when the water eventually recedes, and the roads reopen, life will not simply return to the way it was before.
The lake is a reservoir created by the dam. During the rainy season, the water normally rises gradually, leaving areas of land along the shoreline where villagers can grow vegetables and crops for the coming season. This year, however, the unusually heavy rainfall has kept the water level much higher than usual. With so much land now submerged, many families have lost the ground they depend on to grow food and support themselves.
The immediate flood may eventually pass, but its consequences will remain. For many families, the challenge will be finding new ways to grow food and sustain themselves in the months ahead. This is why we are already thinking about alternative forms of agriculture that can work with the changing conditions, rather than simply waiting for the water to go down.
We are fortunate that Baan Unrak is situated on higher ground, keeping our home and the children physically safe from rising water. But being safe from the water does not mean being free from its consequences. Like everyone else in the community, we have had to worry about our food supplies, our income, and how we will meet our everyday needs.
Most importantly, we are worried about our children. Some of them are not safe at home, they are outside our protection, such as those who are studying at university. They, too, have experienced flooding and have to worry about how to find food and a dry place to stay.
With the roads cut off, even getting food, water, and other necessities depends on staying connected with the village. This experience has reminded us that a flood can affect a community in many ways, even when the water does not reach your doorstep.
That experience has also brought us closer to the 1,225 families we have been supporting in Myanmar through our partnership with We Help You To Fly. Many of these families have faced flooding twice within a single month and have far fewer resources and options to recover.
Experiencing even a small part of that uncertainty ourselves has given us a deeper understanding of what they are going through and reminded us why our work matters.
Just two days after the flooding began, the day arrived for a relief mission that Baan Unrak had planned a month earlier. The flood did not change our commitment to the families we had promised to help. Instead, it challenged us to find a different way to reach them.
With the roads cut off and normal transportation disrupted, our children and staff worked together to find inventive ways to continue. Cars, motorbikes, and boats each became part of the journey, carrying supplies from one point to another. And alongside them were many small hands, our children helping to carry sacks of rice and essential supplies through each stage of the journey.
It was not easy, but we did not turn back. Through determination, cooperation, and a little creativity, we found a way to bring the supplies to the families who were waiting for our assistance. The flood had changed the way we travelled, but it did not change our commitment to help. For us, this was about more than delivering food. It was about choosing to remain people who can help, even when we ourselves are facing uncertainty.
We may be affected by the floods, but we still have the strength to find a way forward and to reach out to those who have even fewer options than we do.
The flood may have submerged roads, interrupted electricity, separated families, and taken away the land people depend on for their livelihoods. But it has not washed away the spirit of solidarity at Baan Unrak. If anything, it has shown us how much can be achieved when people come together and share what they have.
We are deeply proud of our staff, our children, and our neighbours, not because these days have been easy, but because in the middle of difficulty, people chose to care, to cooperate, and to keep helping.
We hope to come through this difficult time not simply as those who were able to survive it, but as people who remained strong enough to lend a hand to others. We do not want to be the ones waiting to be rescued; we want to remain the ones who can help.
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