Retired nun serves kids, elderly in Bangkok slum

Published Date: April 28, 2009

SISTER JOAN EVANS, an Australian missioner, lives in Rong Moo (slaughterhouse), a slum community in Bangkok´s congested Klong Toey area. Every day, she sets out on foot, visiting and offering help to residents here, especially children and elderly people. “Sometimes I have to take people to the hospital very late at night,” she said.

THE NUN from the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary congregation has been working in the slum since 1992, after
she retired from teaching in Australia. Now in her seventies,
she lives alone in a simple rented wooden house in the area.

UNCLE PIA, 67, is one of many in the community Sister Evans
helps. He had a brain operation a few months ago after
suffering an accident while working in a factory. The nun
usually brings him adult diapers because he suffers from
urinary incontinence. She also follows up on his treatment.

UNCLE PIA now cannot speak. He also cannot move the left part
of his body but can only listen and nod. The operation left a curved
scar on the left side of his head, and he often has an empty gaze.

THE SLUM’S many children have benefited from Sister Evan’s
lone ministry. “Most of their parents are laborers. Sometimes
they can only send one child to school,” she shared. So she
supports the kids by paying their school fees and providing
them with uniforms, socks, shoes, bags and books. “Last year,
I gave out 600 uniforms,” she said. She also pays their school
transportation costs, as well as breakfast and lunch. “If their
stomachs rumble, they cannot study,” she quipped.

“THESE CHILDREN and young people need to be helped so
that they can help themselves,” the nun said, noting that
some of the slum children do not live with their parents. One
or both parents may be in jail or dead. Parents could also
be separated. Some children live with their grandparents.

SISTER EVANS has also launched a project
to give milk to children twice a month. Staff
from the Australian Embassy in Thailand and
other foreigners support her in this project.

THE NUN was a secondary school teacher in Western
Australia until she retired in 1990, according to her website (http://www.sisterjoan.info/). After her retirement, she studied the
Thai language for eight months before moving to Klong Toey.

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