Giovanni
Contarin was born on the 19th of
November 1956 and raised in
PioX Treviso
Italy. He was
ordained as a Catholic Priest at
St Lorenzo parish of Poggiana di Riese PioX
Italy in 1983.
Prior to his arrival in Thailand on the 12th
of August 1985 he spent time at the St Camillus
Hospital Karungu- Kenya (nyanza province) Africa
and in India on two six monthly tours of duty.
On arriving in Thailand he settled down to study
the Thai Language which he told me he found
difficult to master but master it he did. He
started the first HIV/AIDS hospice in Bangkok
not far from the old airport in Don Mung.
Finding staff and setting up a facility like
this on a shoe string budget can only be
described as difficult to put it mildly but then
came the big problem.
The big problem being that elements of the local
population in that area were very resistant to
this facility being in their area because of the
type of illness, being that of HIV/AIDS. Fear of
the virus due to poor knowledge of the subject
and the stigma related to the fact that it is
spread through unsafe sex, were at least part of
the problem. I suggest that as with all things
money was also an issue perhaps because of a
perceive effect on property values in that area.
The result of which culminated in violence
against Father Giovanni himself in that his car
was bombed and also against the building and
patients in that the windows of the
building were shot out by firearms.
So in 1994 the work was begun in the Rayong
province at our current site on land that was
donated by a Thai Catholic family. All further
information can be found through out this
website.
Should you
decide to support this project, donations may be
sent directly to the:
St. Camillus Foundation of Thailand,
Bank of Ayudhya
Map-Ta-Phut Branch Rayong
Account Number 229-1-29336-3 (AYUDTHBK).