Bright Dawn Foundation
By Mike Staples, Deputy President, Bright Dawn Foundation
Published: 11 September 2025
The Bright Dawn Foundation has been supporting rural primary schools in traditionally low-income areas in the hinterland of Hua Hin since 2010 with two core programs, healthcare and education, as well as other initiatives, all designed to help provide students with the tools they might need for a brighter future.
Numerous studies have shown that healthy children achieve better learning outcomes and our initial findings 15 years ago were that a food allowance of 10 baht per day left many children hungry and too tired to study properly with 31% of students actually malnourished and significantly below the standard height and weight for their ages. This was principally due to the fact that they were only receiving one meal a day.
Our first initiative was our School Meal Program which provided sufficient finance to create two meals per day with a menu prepared by a qualified nutritionist ensuring a healthier and balanced diet. This program is the mainstay of our healthcare program and all children at Bright Dawn supported schools continue to receive both breakfast and lunch every day.
The benefits and results of the program are independently verified by an annual round of medical check-ups conducted by Mahachaiphetcharat Hospital, a member of one of the leading hospital groups in Thailand. The check-ups include blood screening, checks on height, weight, dental health, eyesight and general cleanliness. We provide glasses where needed and any major health concerns are discussed between the schools and the parents for further action.
Basic blood screening provides a good indicator of any potential issues.
Oral hygiene is checked for every child and dental kits are provided.
The vast majority of the children are from low-income backgrounds and conditions at home might not be ideal so general cleanliness is also recorded for every child and we have built shower rooms, provided soap and headlice shampoo to every school.
We also conduct child development testing for children up to 6 years of age, things as simple as being able to do up shirt buttons, put on shoes or as in this picture, use building blocks can signify whether early development is on track.
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Recent check-up results indicate that our school meal program has had a positive impact; malnourishment has been eliminated some time ago and all but a handful of children are in good health. We have also managed to improve attendance at the medicals over the years, children are sometimes afraid of needles after all, up to 97% or 724 children this year with each child being given a useful item (sun hats this year) as an incentive. Results for 2025 show no adverse trends or issues which gives us confidence that our programs are working well.
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Early development testing showed improved results from 9% of children with delayed development last year to 5% this year, a figure which has been on the right downward trend for a while now and is considerably better than the national average of roughly 30%.
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None of this is possible without the support of our fantastic donors, both institutions and individuals and we are delighted that The British Community in Thailand Foundation for the Needy has backed us for 3 years now with help in funding the medical checks. We are very grateful for your support.
