by Dr. Iain
Corness
A
man stood up in front of young children in a dry and
dusty Isaan village school saying, “I want to tell
you how important it is that you study very hard to
learn English. If you want to get a good job outside
Thailand when you leave school, you must be able to
read, write and speak English. With English you can
travel the world and be understood by people in
every country in the world, and like anything else
in life, the more effort you put into something, the
greater the rewards.” To make sure that they really
did understand, he had an interpreter deliver the
message in Thai as well.
If the above words were delivered
by a politician, you would not be surprised. After
all, a politician is supposed to look after the
welfare of his constituents and their children.
However, when those words were delivered by a 17
year old American from New York, it is surprising.
Very surprising. But Andrew Titley is a very
surprising young man.
He has lived in New York for
almost all his life, and looks like the archetypal
young American, short hair, fresh-faced and chewing
gum. And that New Yorker twang. Yes, he is
definitely an American.
He went to public schools in New
York, but always had an interest in life beyond
American shores. He entertained thoughts of being an
Egyptologist, “But 9/11 changed all that.” Four
years ago he visited Thailand with his father and
was impressed. “I enjoyed the people, the food, the
language and the culture. It’s a far cry from how
people act in America,” said the young philosopher.
He returned to Thailand with his
father last year. His father was getting remarried,
and for Andrew it was another chance to further
explore a foreign country and to meet his stepmother
who was a Thai lady from Si Saket. Being a visitor,
he was taken round his stepmother’s village,
including a stop at the village school. There he met
the teacher charged with the responsibility of
teaching English, who asked Andrew if he had any old
children’s books as these could make teaching the
language more interesting for the students. Andrew
made a note and mentally vowed to raid his
bookshelves at home and send some over.
However, it was something that
had obviously made an impact on him, and on the long
plane flight back to America he began to think why
should he just stop with his own bookshelves? There
would have to be others like him with books they had
outgrown too. This was the start of his project, to
be a book drive to help some children in a foreign
country.
He discussed the idea with his
mother, with whom he lived in New York, and his
father, and although he received moral support, the
project had to be Andrew’s. Being an “e-student”, he
first designed a website for his project, and called
it ThaiBookDrive.com “where one book can make a
difference.”
He then approached his English
department at his school, but far from being
enthusiastic about spreading the English word
overseas, he was told of the problems he would have
with registration of his concept, licenses,
receipting and the like. For most 17 year olds that
would have been enough cold water to douse the
flames of youthful enthusiasm. But not for Andrew
Titley!
He began by addressing classes in
his school, with his appeal for books for the
children in Isaan. The books began to come rolling
in. He sent a flyer to every school in the county
and began to get some second-hand textbooks. He
spoke to librarians about old stock, got some space
in local newspapers and haunted garage sales for
suitable books.
As the publicity expanded, more
people came to hear of his concept. One of these was
Steve Frantzich who had a company called Books for
International Goodwill, which was shifting
warehouses. Steve told him he would donate several
thousand books, but Andrew would have to find a
shipping agent first.
This was a most necessary
stimulus. By this stage, Andrew’s mother’s house was
so full of books they could not get into the lounge
room! So he began to contact shipping agents, but
did not receive the enthusiastic response that he
had hoped. Quite the reverse. “I received some very
demoralizing comments, including ones that said they
didn’t want to donate to 17 year olds,” said Andrew.
However, one company did feel
that a young man with enthusiasm deserved a break,
and BDP International’s Richard Bolt in America and
Claus Dittmer, their area manager in Bangkok,
donated a 20 foot ocean freight container to get the
books, now totaling over 60,000, to Thailand, from
the USA. Another company, Triways Logistics and
their GM in Bangkok Lim Kok Wee, then got the cargo
to Ubon Ratchathani.
Andrew returned to Thailand to
arrange distribution. “I wanted to visit the
schools, not just leave books,” said Andrew. He also
felt that being a youngster himself, the Isaan
children might be able to relate to him and his
educational message. “I think it is important that
they understand that someone outside of their
village actually notices them,” he said simply. To
this end he has visited 64 schools and addressed
12,850 students. That’s a lot of noticing!
However, Andrew has not finished
there, as he has a second batch of books arriving,
and again this has been done through more sponsors
such as shipping agents CDS Overseas (Jospeh Yau and
Supawan), Metro Express Trucking (Jimmy Hogan) and
Target Logistics (Chris Coppersmith). There will be
another 12,000 Isaan children who will reap the
benefits of a young man with vision and
determination.
His maturity is also far more than you expect of
a 17 year old but Andrew laughed, “Growing up on New
York you have to get used to life. What you don’t
learn in school you learn from walking around the
neighborhood!”
