Thailand has several ethnic minority people groups who live in the mountains of northern Thailand. Some of the tribes are Hmong, Akha, Karen, Yao, Lahu and Lisu. These “hill tribe” people are treated worse than second class citizens. The villages are very poor; in many cases there are no utilities, no stores, no schools and no hope. Because they are hill tribe, they do not have the proper government paperwork to obtain an education or employment. The hill tribe people face choices that include subsistence living, bartering goods like chickens, eggs or fish, or working in the rice fields. Despair and diseases of poverty are rampant, including malnutrition, dental problems, alcoholism, drug abuse, neglect, and physical and sexual abuse of children.

Just as in America, when people are desperate, the choices they make to survive are not always good. It’s easy for some hill tribe people to get caught up in drug smuggling because of the opportunity to make a substantial amount of money in a very short period of time for comparatively little effort. A frequent scenario that is played out over and over is this: a drug lord will approach a desperate girl, asking her to perform a task such as carrying a package from one village to another. The girl is paid well for her efforts. However, after a period of time, the drug lord will alert the police to the girl’s drug smuggling activities and she is arrested. In the meantime, a large shipment of drugs gets through to its destination on another road. The drug lord appears as a conscientious citizen and the police get to make an arrest.

If that girl has any children younger than the age of two, she has the option to take those children into the prison with her. It is often preferable for her to take her children into the prison rather than leave them in the care of her relatives in the villages where abuses frequently occur. However, if she takes the children with her, they will experience the same bleak conditions as the prisoners. The prison sentences in Thailand are very long and the prisons are crowded. Many of the prisons in Thailand are genuinely trying to take adequate care of the prisoners, but it’s still a prison, not a home. The prisoners often lack even the simpler comforts of village life. The food is merely adequate, and medical treatment and dental care is limited. The prisoners are dependent upon friends or family members to supplement their needs. Hill tribe families are often unable to travel the distance to the prison, and they may not have the means to support the incarcerated family member.

It should be pointed out that children being raised in the prison system are not unique to Thailand. Many western countries such as the United States, Great Britain, and Australia also keep mothers and children together. The belief in this practice is that by keeping mother and child together, a family bond is established and that upon the release of the mother, the bond will be re-established. The biggest difference between the penal systems in Thailand versus the western countries is the length of the prison terms. Many people in Thailand serve 10 years or more for infractions that would result in probation or diversion in the west.

After children reach the age of 2, they can no longer stay in the prison. If the children have relatives in the villages, they are returned to their village. Because of the poverty in the village, the children are not always welcomed, but are frequently seen as a burden. Their guardians may try to alleviate that burden by forcing the children to work long hours in the fields, abandoning them to elderly grandparents who are physically unable to care for them or selling them to the many child predators who are involved in the child sex trade. The children may be neglected, verbally and physically abused or worse.

If there are no relatives available to take care of the children, they are sent to a state-run orphanage. The orphanages are large facilities where there are more children than can adequately be cared for by the staff. Family ties are broken as the orphanages do not have the means to arrange for visits to the prisons. Because there is little opportunity to form bonds and attachments to adult caregivers in an institutional setting, many children never learn to trust anyone. They develop attachment disorders, and are deprived of the chance to become independent and responsible adults.

The Formation of Child, Family & Prison Ministry

In November of 2005, Ryan Roe, along with several other members of Fellowship Baptist Church went on a short term missions trip to Chiang Rai, Thailand.  Following this initial trip and a subsequent short-term trip to Chiang Rai, Ryan made the decision to become a full-time missionary working with children and the families of children affected by the incarceration of the children’s parents.

Ryan gave up a promising career with the Social Security Administration in Kansas City to become a full-time missionary serving in Thailand.  Ryan has lived and worked in Chiang Rai, Thailand since July 28^th of 2006.  During the first two years in Thailand Ryan was working with a local children’s ministry that also worked with children affected by incarceration.  During that ministry Ryan became acquainted with Arlang and Jinda Wuncherkoo (husband and wife) and Amy Wunchergoo, sister of Arlang. They all worked together with a children’s foundation and found they had a similar vision for assisting the children of Thailand to reach their potential.

In November of 2006 a group of four individuals, Donna and Doug Wade, Steve Cummings and Vergil Phillips (now all members of the CF&PM Board of Directors) went on a short-term mission trip to Chiang Rai, Thailand to support Ryan Roe and the work he was doing with children affected by incarceration.  It was during that trip that was to be the beginning of the formation of CF&PM.  Ryan and the team saw the need to establish a foundation to specifically raise children through individual family-based homes for boys and girls that had nowhere to live because their parents were in prison.  In addition, this team saw the need to provide support to those parents, usually mothers, in prison so that they could maintain a healthy bond with their children through regular visits.

In order to realize its vision, CF&PM needed to establish an official foundation in Thailand that would be recognized by the Thai government.  In January of 2007, Arlang, Jinda, Amy and Ryan made the decision to form a foundation in Thailand that would help the children of the imprisoned as well as their parents. A Thai foundation is necessary due to Thai law that stipulates child custody is only awarded to Thai citizens. The name of the Thai foundation is Munity Dek Let Kahp Kula Nai Ruinjam, literally translated as Foundation Children and Family in the Prison.  In order to provide the appropriate legal standing and accountability with the Thai government in assuming guardianship of the children, it is necessary to work along with the Thai foundation.

In 2008, after the establishment of the Thai foundation a group of Ryan’s friends and supporters met together to form a board of directors, establish bylaws and articles of incorporation and seek non-profit status.

The corporation, named Child, Family & Prison Ministries Foundation (CF&PM), was registered and officially recognized in the State of Kansas on January 21, 2009.