This summer the Thai Film Fund is sponsoring a number of events in Khao Lak, Thailand and is currently working with other organizations such as the Wave of Hope, LDS Charities, and the 4Kali Foundation (to name a few), in our efforts to help Tsunami survivors. The Thai Film Fund is unique, however, in our philosophy and approach to the disaster relief efforts in Thailand. We believe that currently the longest-lasting effects of the devastation of the Tsunami in December of 2005 are emotional, physiological and spiritual. In addition to the necessary and immediate need for housing reconstruction projects and infrastructure rebuilding, therefore, we are working to empower Thai people with a means to express, explore and better understand the emotional damage. By doing this we hope to aid in the long and difficult healing process.

To accomplish this we are reaching out into the camps and temporary living centers to provide tsunami survivors with access to and training in the art forms of documentary filmmaking, photography and fine art. By empowering Thai individuals with the resources to document their lives we hope to provide a medium that will promote mental, emotional and spiritual healing in the community.

In addition to the Community Arts Program, we are also working to preserve and document stories for individual as well as archival purposes with our Mobile Story-Telling Booth. This booth will enable tsunami survivors to tell their stories. These stories will then be burnt onto a V-CD for each person which will then allow them to preserve something personal for their posterity about their experiences and thereby help bring some degree of closure.