Shelter
The Shelter provides refuge for those without friends or family who are in need of support, in facing the reality of extreme poverty and sickness. It provides a temporary place for families who meet strict criteria as being in particular need, most typically:
• Single pregnant women or mothers with newborns. Those are often women who are working on the construction sites up until very close to their time of delivery. Once they stop work then they may no longer live on the site. The housing on the site is usually just a corrugated iron hut in one of the unfinished buildings; an inappropriate setting for new mothers. The shelter provides a short-term solution while the mothers can plan for their futures and the baby’s.
• Mothers caring for a sick child or husband – sometimes people have moved into the cities in order to be close to a hospital and medical care. However this often leaves them in a very vulnerable situation.
• Women who have recently lost their husband or child – this may be becoming a widow due to aids or husbands may have been imprisoned. The shelter provides them with time and emotional support to start rebuilding their lives.
• Mothers who are weak and unable to work – these women are too ill to support their families anymore so a shelter and nursing care is provided for them.

The shelter can house 6-8 families and is regularly visited by the Siam-Care care team providing similar care to that in the Home Based Care project. The shelter runs like a family unit; the families do everything themselves, as if it was their own home. This means that there is almost always someone in the shelter who is strong enough to go shopping and do the cooking when others are too ill. The women are also given the opportunity to make crafts in order to earn a small income. The shelter provides enormous peer support and a wealth of experience from those who are at different stages of illness or caring for their relatives.