There’s a really big tree with roots all over the place and beautiful deep green leaves shaped like a Valentine’s Day heart. It's a nice tree, but it’s slightly unkempt. However, Auntie Gung and our children say it’s fine for a sacred tree to be unkempt. And this is a sacred tree with a sacred spirit, or angel. It's called a dhon pho tree in Thai and it’s in the back of the Klong Toey slum flats.

This year we started a trash bank for the school children attending our Klongtoey Nai and Romklao Mercy Preschools. It’s a beautiful concept that we hope to expand to all our Mercy kindergartens in the near future.

After an extended stay in a local children’s hospital, our darling, Nong Fon, has returned to Mercy. Her best friend at Mercy, Nong Peh, is overjoyed.

This week we welcomed our boys back from Warsaw, Poland where they competed in a very special football world cup.

“We want to thank our teachers for teaching us, loving us, being here for us, and caring about us even when we are being difficult. Thank you, my teachers for your unconditional love and trust,” said one teary-eyed student from our Janusz Korczak School for street children.

There was lots of screaming and shouting in the slaughterhouse neighbourhood. Miss Ploy was throwing a loud tantrum against her mum.

Just a quick glance at Miss Ploy walking by in the slum and you would know, this is a special kid.