About us
Click here to watch a video. Rejoice Charity is a grassroots HIV project based in Chiang
Mai province, Northern Thailand, near the foot of the
famous Doi Suthep Mountain and temple. We were founded on
January 11, 1998 and have been fully operational for just
over 9 years. We have 7 full-time staff and a number of
part-time local and foreign volunteers.
Our co-founders are cousins, Derek Hallam and Gareth
Lavell; both former nurses and businessmen from the United
Kingdom, and Derek is still our chief today. Initially they
set up three successful Aids hospices in the capital,
Bangkok, including the first slum-based community hospice
in the country. After five years of operating the hospices
and training personnel, they turned the centres' management
over to Thai employees. Seeing an urgent need to support
those affected by HIV/Aids in the Chiang Mai area, Derek
and Gareth, assisted by Lampoo, a senior staff member,
moved to Northern Thailand to set up the charity that has
since become Rejoice.
In 2004, a group of supporters, together with Derek and
Gareth, established the Rejoice Foundation UK, a
British-registered charity, dedicated to the same ideals.
Rejoice's goal is to provide a much-needed medical and
social support system to poor, ill and underprivileged
people living in Chiang Mai's villages and other peripheral
communities throughout the province. Our care programme
addresses the diverse array of basic medical and social
needs demonstrated by the men, women and children infected
with, or affected by, HIV.
By providing access to basic health care in the village
communities, we also aim to improve health standards
through medical services, education and skills transfer.
We support people living with HIV to continue to work to
provide for their family, and help orphaned children return
to school to receive the education they need and deserve in
an environment of support, acceptance and encouragement.
And we seek to help people break out of the vicious circle
of poverty associated with this disease.
Courtesy StarTV