Jimmy and Jeng Homestay

Hi, my name is Mike and I am raising funds to help Jimmy and Na rebuild their lovely homestay after it was badly affected by the recent and unprecedented floods in Chiang Mai. Their business is in ruins with all the furniture and bedding ruined as well as most of the kitchenware. At the moment Jimmy and Na are spending every day trying to wash away the mud and dry out the rooms to a point where they can be redecorated. Some electrical fixtures survived such as the aircon units which were above the highest water level, but all the room fans, fridges and power distribution boxes were damaged.

The brown muddy water reached over 1.6m deep (over Jimmy and Na's heads!) in all the rooms including all the guest rooms. The River Ping overflowed its banks after extremely heavy rains further upstream leading to Chiang Mai's worst floods in 100 years.

If you have ever stayed with Jimmy and Na (and their son Jeng) you will know that they are the loveliest, most genuine and helpful people you could ever wish to meet. The reviews on Booking.com speak volumes about them: how they put their best into making your stay friendly and comfortable and in doing so, provide a unique window on Thai life.

Jimmy, Na and their son, Jeng are such lovely genuine people that I feel strongly motivated to help get them back on their feet, up and running their homestay again. Furthermore, Jimmy and Na live in a small community of other people who were already very poor and who have now lost everything in the flood. They are great supporters of this local community, so helping Jimmy and Jeng Homestay also helps these local people. A recent initiative to bring more money into the local people has been the holding of a small "Walking Street" selling foods and handicrafts every Friday evening. Jimmy is on the committee.

Any funds received will be given to Jimmy and Na to spend on re-equipping and redecorating the guesthouse to the condition it was in before the flood. If there were to be any surplus funds, they would be used to help the neediest local community members. My understanding is that each household can receive 9000 Thai Baht (about $US 270) from the Thai government to rebuild their homes. And there may be another 10,000 Baht (about $US 300) to come from the local Chiang Mai Municipal Government.

I've never created a crowd funding page before, so I don't know how this will go, but I will do my very best to inform donors of how their money is being spent. I have a Wise account to transfer money from my UK account to Thailand. It gives an excellent rate of exchange, though depending on how it goes, I may send several donations added together to minimise transaction fees from WIse.

Many thanks in anticipation.

Mike Lyth