Former Alexandria woman caught up in fatal shooting

Nov 28 2008 by Tina Kemp, Lennox Herald (main ed)

A FORMER Alexandria woman has pledged to keep helping destitute families in Thailand, despite being caught up in a fatal shooting.

Tracy Cosgrove was left shocked after a teenager she knew was shot through the heart in a labour camp where she is working.

Mum-of-two Tracy had seen 14-year-old Khun Sonlum just moments before he was killed at the camp in Naklua, where she is campaigning to improve conditions for migrant workers.

From her home in Thailand, stunned Tracy – who has just opened her second day care centre for the workers – told the Lennox Herald: “This is the kind of thing I am up against. The camps are dangerous.

“This young boy was killed in the camp I am working in. He lived next to the day care centre. I saw him at 6pm when I left and, not long after, he was shot dead. One of my staff was his neighbour. She found him. He was a really nice lad.”

The boy, whose parents are both construction workers, often came into the centre which caters for around 50 children who live with their parents in the squalid camps.

Tracy, who runs the Melissa Cosgrove Children’s Foundation, said the incident was indicative of the conditions in which families live.

“The camps are dangerous places and this is why we close at 6pm as it gets very rowdy,” she said. “Just a month ago the workers threw a colleague out of his house because he hit his three-year-old daughter with a hanger. But I will continue to help the workers and their children.”

Tracy, whose husband Brian was killed in a road accident near their former home at Strathleven Park several years ago, is trying to raise money to help the bereaved relatives.

She said: “I know this boy’s mum will not be able to work for a while and it will be very hard for them emotionally and financially. But I urgently want to help this distraught family.”

Tracy’s charity, set up in 2003, funds schools, orphanages and street children’s projects in Thailand and Burma.

She opened her day care centres, which provide a safe and fun environment for children, after being appalled at the conditions in which migrant workers are forced to live.

Each camp is home to hundreds of workers and their families sometimes with as many as 800 houses – no more than six feet square – on one site. Many families live in just one room where food is also cooked and illness is a major problem.

She is now working with the country’s booming construction industry to build similar facilities on 23 labour camps over the next five years in Pattaya, Bangkok and Hua Hin.