Oh Hai! Wanna Change Someone's Life Today?

Friends, we are gathered here today to do something awesome. (Well, I mean more awesome than talking about Dr. Seuss-inspired outfits or houses that appear to have faces). We are gathered here today to Do Something Awesome For Someone Awesome.

This is my friend Dabi:(Don't you love how joyful he is? And that yellow case is for his machete. He brings it everywhere! Because you never know when you're going to need a machete, right?)

Dabi is Akha, one of Thailand's many highland minority groups. When he was seven years old, Dabi had to leave his village to attend school in Chiang Mai. Over the course of his schooling, Dabi attended nine schools because administrators were often reluctant to accept highland students. Despite all this, Dabi earned fantastic marks and was the first person from his village to go to college. With a B.A. in community development (and fluency in six languages!) Dabi funded, implemented and coordinated a support group for highland families affected by HIV. He's worked with UNESCO and now he works with my sociologist friends Daniel and Amanda.

What a super star, right? But there are two things holding Dabi back.
1. He's Akha.
Despite being born in Thailand, Dabi wasn't considered a Thai citizen until he completed an arduous application process and discrimination against highland people is rampant. Dabi was an officer in the military for five years, but the fact that he is a naturalized citizen prevented him from ever being promoted above a sub-lieutenant.

2. His limited English.
Dabi's English is slowly improving, but it's not quite good enough. Dabi is obviously a natural language learner (six languages! 6!) and if he had the chance to study English, he'd probably beat all of us at Scrabble within two months. Once Dabi is fluent, he can advocate for highland issues with international organizations.

So let's help! Let's send Dabi to English school!

photo by Angela Kearney

Dabi is a leader in his community and his language skills and insight into highland culture mean that he can create programs and advocate in ways that we outsiders can't. He's one of the hardest-working, smartest, kindest people I've ever met. Also: super cute.

Ways to help!

Buy a scarf

These silk scarves are hand dyed and 24" x 24." They look adorable with just about everything! $15 of each $20 purchase will go toward Dabi's school fund.  Free shipping!  Even internationally!
 
Edited to add: Holy crap, but you guys love scarves!  These sold out within an hour and a half!

Buy a pair of earrings

Gorgeous, dangly Indian earrings. They're juuuuust different enough to elicit comments of "Where did you get those?!" $15 of each $20 purchase will go toward Dabi's school fund. Free shipping! Everywhere! Edited to add: Sold out!
If you don't have any need for scarves or earrings (!?) then you can straight up donate funds that will help Dabi go to English school. 100% of donations go toward Dabi's tuition.

Donate

We'll be keeping you guys updated on how Dabi's English-learning is going. Thanks a million for helping out!