From Children's Curiosity to Community Projects
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
Here in Baan Unrak, the children are our treasure. Everything we do is for them: to give them a safe home, quality education, and the physical and emotional well-being they need to grow.
It was also for them that we created the Mother Project: a place where mothers can stay with their children, recover, grow stronger, and build a better future together. But there is something that few people know: many of our projects began with the children themselves.
Children naturally observe what the adults around them are doing. They are curious about our work, and when they see us creating, cooking, planting, building, or experimenting, they naturally want to come closer, touch, try, and discover with their own hands.
At Baan Unrak, we see the hands of children as a special blessing. Their curiosity often brings an unexpected idea or a new possibility. Sometimes what begins as a simple experiment grows into something much bigger, a skill, a livelihood, or even one of our main self-sustaining projects.
The Magic Bag
One of our earliest examples came from the children themselves.
As they discovered the traditional art of weaving, they began experimenting with their hands and created our very first product: a simple and imperfect bag that could open and close by pulling its strings.
It was a small creation, but it was the beginning of something important. The bag became the first product of our newly founded Weaving and Sewing Centre. Over time, the centre became a source of income for mothers in the community and a place where our teenagers could learn practical skills and prepare for working life.
From the Kitchen to the Bakery
The same spirit continued in our kitchen.
The children naturally watched what was happening around them and wanted to participate. They experimented with baking, trying different ingredients and methods. From this curiosity came our famous cheese bread.
What began as children's experimentation eventually became the foundation of our bakery and restaurant, and today is one of the important sources of income that helps sustain Baan Unrak.
Discovering the Butterfly Pea
Our children became curious about the butterfly pea flowers we were growing. We had started cultivating them because we loved the idea of surrounding Baan Unrak with their beauty. At the same time, we wanted to give the children meaningful daily tasks, helping them understand that everyone has something to contribute to the home and the community. We felt that working with something so beautiful could make this responsibility joyful.
A friend and sponsor was also developing a unique supplement using butterfly pea, and we wanted to join his adventure and explore its possibilities together.
The children helped gather the flowers, and when we began looking for better ways to harvest them, we invited them to experiment with us. From there, their curiosity opened the way to new ideas.
Today, the project is mainly run by adults, but we are happy that the children's hands were part of its beginning. What started with flowers, beauty, and a simple daily task is now developing into an enterprise with the potential to contribute to Baan Unrak's self-sustainability.
The Okra Experiment
This way of learning through curiosity continues today.
When we looked at our land, we discovered that some crops did not grow well, while simple plants such as okra thrived. Instead of seeing the plant only as a food crop, we began asking ourselves: What else can we do with what we have?
Once again, the children naturally became part of the exploration. They were curious about what the adults were doing and came to watch, touch, and try.
When Didi was extracting seeds from the okra pods, the children joined her. Through experimentation, they discovered ways to remove the seeds more quickly and separate the fibres without damaging them.
From there, our imagination began to grow. Could the seeds produce a nutritious oil? could the seeds become a sobstitut for coffe? Could the fibres become useful materials? Could the dried okra pods be transformed into absorbent cat litter?
We do not yet know where the project will lead. There is still much to experiment with and discover. But that is precisely what makes it exciting.
A Community Connection
The okra project grew further when someone in the community connected us with a farmer in Ratchaburi who had many okra plants available.
The children were excited to bring them back to Baan Unrak. They helped collect and dry the plants, remove the seeds, and continue experimenting with the different parts of the plant.
The project is still developing, but we hope that it will eventually become more than an experiment at Baan Unrak. We want to share the knowledge and techniques with our Sangkhlaburi community, encouraging people to discover new possibilities in what is already available around them.
Knowledge That Comes Home
Our agriculture project is another example of how knowledge can grow with a child and eventually return to the community. Today, the project is led by Winai, who himself grew up at Baan Unrak. After leaving to begin his own life, he continued learning about agriculture, an interest he had developed as a child. He gained practical experience and eventually brought that knowledge back to Baan Unrak.
Today, he leads the farming project and shares what he has learned with our workers and children. In this way, learning comes full circle: a child grows up at Baan Unrak, discovers an interest, leaves to explore the world, gains knowledge and experience, and eventually brings that knowledge home to share with the next generation.
For us, this is one of the most beautiful parts of Baan Unrak. Children explore, become creative, develop skills, and sometimes return to enrich the lives of other children and the wider community.
The Blessing of Children's Hands
When we look back, we can see that many of our important projects began in a surprisingly simple way: a child watching an adult, becoming curious, and wanting to try something with their own hands.
The Magic Bag. The cheese bread. The butterfly pea. And now the okra project. Not every experiment will become a successful project, and that is perfectly fine. The value is also in the process of discovering, trying, making mistakes, and trying again.
Sometimes an idea begins with a piece of fabric, a leftover plant, a new recipe, or an interest in farming. With encouragement and the freedom to experiment, that small idea can grow into a skill, a project, a livelihood, or something that benefits an entire community.
For us, the children's hands are a special blessing. They remind us that children are not only the reason we create our projects; they can also be the ones who inspire them. We believe that supporting children's curiosity and involvement in new ideas means supporting their ability to shape the future.
And sometimes, the most meaningful projects begin with the simplest question:
“What can we do with what we have?”
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