Thailand: disabled students help tsunami relief effort

Disabled students from a school in Thailand are playing a key role in the tsunami relief effort. Young people, many of them wheelchair-bound, studying at the Pattaya Orphanage Vocational School for disabled people, are working as volunteer computer programmers to assist with the sad task of building a DNA database to identify tsunami victims. The Pattaya Orphanage, set up over 30 years ago by Redemptorist priest, the late Father Ray Brennan, runs several projects including a centre for babies, street children and schools for deaf and blind youngsters. It is now also offering a home to children orphaned by the disaster. Pattaya is 80 miles south of Bangkok, and was not affected by the tsunami. The school is the only one of its kind in Thailand, providing disabled people with skills in electronics, English and computing. It also runs an employment agency - helping disabled people find work so that they can live independently. For more information, or to support the work of the Pattaya Orphanage visit: http:// www.pattayaorphanage.org.uk