ZOE: Year-End Update 2016

ZOE International rescues and cares for orphans and trafficked children, primarily in Thailand. Our support is providing preventative healthcare (nutrition, medical, and dental care) for the 75 long-term children in their care.

In 2016, TFish support enabled ZOE children to receive essential preventative healthcare, including flu vaccines, vitamins, and de-worming medicine.

Vitamins: ​We provided one complete multi-vitamin per child per day for one year.

​The ZOE kitchen prepares over 450 meals per day for their children, staff, and volunteers. Over the years they have made great strides in improving the nutritional level for our children. Improvements include having fresh fruit at every dinner meal and a box of milk for each child with the morning meal. Although the amount of food is plentiful, they believe that there are certain minerals and vitamins missing from the children’s diet. For example, vitamin C and iron are lacking due to lower citrus and protein consumption. Having a full complement of necessary vitamins and minerals is essential during the critical developmental years of children and teens.

Deworming Medicine: We provided annual treatment for each child and their caregivers.

​Intestinal parasites are very common in this part of Thailand. We provided each child and their caregivers with an annual deworming treatment.

Flu Vaccines: We enabled each child and their caregivers to receive flu vaccines.

​ZOE children who are Thai citizens are covered by national medical insurance. The children at ZOE who are not Thai have no medical coverage and ZOE pays cash for their care. However, even the Thai national medical insurance is bare-bones coverage and does not include preventative medical care.

Living in a group setting (there are over 150 persons living on the ZOE campus) makes it imperative that children are protected from communicable diseases, especially highly contagious and recurring illnesses such as the flu.

Dental Care: We provided basic cleaning and a baseline x-ray for each child.

​ZOE believes that good dental care is one of the most important things in a child's life. Good teeth promote good health. Bad dental health significantly impacts all kinds of health issues. For example, people who have diabetes can experience significantly higher blood sugar levels just because their teeth are not cleaned. Plaque is filled with bacteria that can significantly impact one's health.

​ZOE provides limited dental care to their children. They have to rely either on dental exams given in the public schools or a child having a toothache to alert them to problems. They do take the children to the dentist but usually only when a problem is evident. Unfortunately, the school dental exams only reveal problems that are well-developed. Many cavities cannot be seen early unless the child has an x-ray exam.

​Our support provided each child with one basic teeth-cleaning procedure for the year. We also provided an initial x-ray for each child to establish the child's baseline dental health and reveal existing cavities. Our support also covered cavity repair or extraction needed after the initial x-ray survey.