With thousands of students and teachers displaced by the tsunami and thousands more schools destroyed or severely damaged, education has been struggling to get back on track in the areas the tsunami hit hardest.

Communities on the south-eastern coast of Thailand were among the worst affected by the tsunami, with over 5,000 people killed and nearly 3,000 more injured. Earlier this year ActionAid launched Tam Yin (literally, ‘paint a smile’ in Thai), a new mobile education unit which will spend the next two years visiting these communities, offering a chance of learning and rehabilitation for thousands of children.

The Tam Yin bus is packed with all the tools needed to get children back into education: books, toys, paints, crayons, games and videos. It will cover thousands of miles, working with over 75 schools, communities and relief camps, reaching children aged between seven and sixteen. Many of these schools are struggling with few resources and have been unable to encourage children to come back and attend full time. The team of enthusiastic education workers who travel along with it, are keen to make education fun again, providing an environment of play, music, drama and sports.

"People learn when they are happy,” says project manager Para Wit Somgkram. “We use play to enable these children to express themselves and that ultimately leads to learning."

There’s another critical role the education project is playing, that of providing psychological care to the children. "We use a variety of techniques such as drama, puppet shows and games," says Para.

"Our objective is to get the children to talk openly about their experiences and to get communities to begin building trust again."

When the bus was first set up in the Kura Buri district, local children put on a display of songs, dancing and games, each genuinely enjoying the opportunity to show off their newly learned skills. Twelve-year-old Anucha Kamin was one of them. Since the tsunami struck, he has to rise at 3am every day to help his grandmother prepare sweet rice to sell at the local market. Both his parents lost their jobs in aftermath of the disaster, so the whole family has had to pull together to try to survive. Anucha now has little time for play.

The bus gave him the chance to engage with other children and spend time building a huge puppet, which the play workers showed him how to move around to express different emotions. Anucha was clearly pleased with the result. When asked how he felt about the day’s activities, he reached for a big piece of white fabric and
summed up his feelings in paint. It said simply, ‘delight’.