Background
Baan Bo Mai is a farming village located in the Kaen Noi Mountain range in the Chiang Mai Province of Northern Thailand. The village, which is 10 miles south of the Thai/Burmese border, is home to more than 200 Lahu Hill Tribe people, stateless refugees from Burma. There are approximately 30 children living in an orphanage within the village. The children are casualties of the drug wars and ethnic persecution in Burma that took the lives of their parents. Five years ago, a Burmese guerrilla fighter named Japhu, along with his son Jaffa, fled Burma and created the orphanage in Thailand. Since then, a dormitory, an activity room, and combined school house and dining hall have been built to accommodate the children. The village and orphanage currently get their drinking water from an agricultural pipeline, which is not fit for human consumption. The goal of this project is to provide the village and orphanage with both clean and reliable drinking water, as well as water for an agricultural field. The source for the water is a stream that lies 2.5 km from the village.