Auntie Boon and Her Dream Team

Somboon Suprasert, affectionately known as "Auntie Boon" is the founder and coordinator of very special women's group. Dedicating their lives to helping HIV and Aids sufferers, the Sanpatong Home Based Care Project is providing education, moral support, medication and counseling to sufferers and families of Aids victims.

Established in 1992, the organization initially consisted of only a few dedicated nurses from the Sanpatong Red Cross health center and some willing volunteers from the Faculty of Medicine in Chiangmai and the Chiangmai Public Health Department. Its aims were simple - to help both HIV/Aids patients and their families in coping with the disease.

They took on a massive task as the number of Aids victims in Sanpatong, one of the hardest hit areas of Thailand, was such that over 60% of all hospital beds in the area were taken by HIV cases. With that in mind, Auntie Boon and her volunteers decided to change the system, adopting a Holistic approach to the problem. The Biological side helped with the treatment of the body and the Psychological side dealt with attitude, acceptance and stress while the Social side of the program improved living conditions by teaching patients how to participate in the community. It was a bold, new approach involving home care and that in turn entailed educating family Members as well as volunteers and village leaders.

Today, some seven years later, Auntie Boon's "Dream Team" is not just going strong, it is positively BOOMING. More than a 1,000 volunteers have been recruited and trained in that time, many of them carrying out home visits but it is still not enough as the team is currently dealing with over 600 cases in the region. Money is always required and the main benefactors, "The Thai Red Cross", and the "Thai Rotary Clubs", have been joined by milk companies who supply soya bean milk products and pharmaceutical companies who are providing drugs. At Sanpatong Hospital, the group has established a shop selling goods and crafts produced by HIV sufferers to raise funds and they also operate a scheme, which directly involves the community.

By encouraging villagers to help with the care of families and victims, the responsibility is shifting back to the community and relieving some of the pressure from the hard-pressed team of volunteers. The "Thursday Club" is another way of gathering support for the project as well as helping integrate HIV suffers back into society. This monthly luncheon, held in Chiangmai, includes after dinner speakers as well as meditation exercises and the opportunity to administer herbal medicines.

Auntie Boon inaugurated a branch of the International Zonta Club in October 1997. Members of the Zonta Club of Chiangmai have sponsored the monthly Thursday Club meeting by donating Baht 4,000 by deciding among themselves to sponsor a meeting in the month in which their birthday falls.

The most recent group to be trained about home care are grandparents who raise their grandchildren after their children have succumbed to Aids. It is not a sacrifice for the grandparents to love and look after the little ones but at this time of their lives the grandparents are no receiving a steady income. Recently 30 children under this project received educational scholarships of Baht 500 each to help them stay in school. In addition to the Zonta Club members supporting these needy children, the Chiangmai Governor and his wife made a generous donation. Even the small amount of Baht 500 per child relieves the financial burden of the grandparents.

Somboon Suprasert, had an impressive career as a nurse, a medical researcher and lecturer and finally as a research consultant at Chiangmai University's Faculty of Medicine. This wealth of experience plus years of work with the Thai Red Cross as well as extensive contacts with welfare agencies and community projects, all helped her establish this unbelievable group of ladies, but it is her strength and dedication that has kept the project going, improved its usefulness, expanded its activities and made it a force to be reckoned with. HIV is the scourge of the 20th century but one day a vaccine will be found and the disease eliminated. Until that day dawns, "Auntie Boon" and the "Dream Team" will continue the task of comforting and caring for those stricken by the illness. Welcome to Chiangmai and Chiangrai magazine praises her efforts and anyone interested in participating in the project should contact "The Editor" for further information.