The Background and Short History

A blind man, Mr Prayat Punong-ong, with the very low budget of 10.000 Baht, started The Christian Foundation for the Blind in Thailand in the year 1978.  He rented a small house in Khon Kaen to serve and teach 13 blind children.  The organization continued its beneficial work and in the year 1986, the foundation was officially registered.  In 1985 the CFBT received the great honor of being place under the Royal Patronage of the King of Thailand.  Now, the CFBT has become the biggest non-profit making NGO in the service of Visually Impaired (VI) persons in Thailand.

The Headquarters of the CFBT is located in the city of Khon Kaen in the North East of Thailand.  From here, six service centers are organized, three in the North East, one in the North, and two in Central Thailand, with a hundred and eighty one employees.  In the year 2001, we gave more than 37,000 services to more than 3,300 visually impaired persons and multiply handicapped blind, with a budget of 38 million Baht (ca. 0.85 million US dollars / 0.96 million Euro) - a small sum considering all our necessary activities.

In addition to the direct services given to the blind, the CFBT also provides training courses to government officers, educators and technicians mainly in Thailand, but also from and in several Indo-Chinese countries. Thus, the CFBT operates with a multiplying function both in Thailand and in the South East Asian region.

The sixth CFBT center, serving the multiply handicapped blind (blind with additional disabilities) at Lopburi Province, 150 km north of Bangkok, has started operating in May 2001.

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