The Bangkok Podcast | Expat Life In Thailand Via Expats From Canada & America

Greg interviews Ilya Smirnoff, the director of Childline Thailand, an NGO dedicated to the rights of children in Thailand. Ilya begins by explaining his early life as a monk, and how he eventually left the monkhood and began doing charity work. The basic genesis of Childline Thailand was to provide a single phone number for children to call to gain access to information about all the government services that are designed to help children in trouble. The organization was able to get the simple phone number ‘1387,’ which is still their number today. Ilya notes that there are actually an array of services of great variety, but that a single access point makes it much easier for children to navigate the system.  Greg then asks Ilya to walk him through an example call, where a child who has run away from home calls in. Ilya says the first step is to assess whether the child is in immediate danger; if so, Childline will immediately call the police so that they can intervene and hopefully render assistance. If a chi