UNICEF donates "School in a Box" for Thailand's flood-affected students

BANGKOK, December 7 (TNA) - The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has donated basic school supplies or "School in a Box" for Thai students whose schools have been severely damaged by recent flooding, as part of the UN agency's policy on supporting global students' continual learning despite natural disasters or wars. UNICEF officer and representative for Thailand Tomoo Hozumi said that UNICEF has donated "School in a Box" kits for students of some 1,300 schools in 39 flood-affected Thai provinces in the central and northeastern regions. Each kit contains notebooks, pencils, pens, rulers, chalks, maps and other learning tools. Up to 2,500 kits of "School in a Box" have been delivered to small-isolated schools with less than 200 students via provincial primary educational service offices. The supply kits will enable the flood-affected Thai students to be ready for their new semester this month, even though their school buildings and educational tools were recently damaged by floodwater. The UNICEF representative also said that UNICEF has budgeted some 37 million bath or 1.2 million U.S. Dollars to support flood-affected children and their families in Thailand, while sanitary items such as bars of soap, chlorine drops for water purification, alcohol hand-wash gel and 350,000 garbage bags have also been handed out in order to help them prevent any spread of flood-borne communicable diseases. As well, UNICEF has given the flood-affected families 320,000 pamphlets with guidance the Thai families should take to protect health and general well-being of their children during flooding. Some 200,000 mosquito nets have also been provided to the families to prevent them from dengue fever and other mosquito-borne diseases or illnesses. (TNA)