Ghost Writer

Though the year was defined by the Tsunami Disaster here in Thailand, it was for the ETC also filled with triumph and many hard won successes. We feel extremely proud of, and grateful for, the wonderful support that we’ve received. We also feel extremely proud of our group of students for their tremendous effort; their ability to overcome many obstacles by working together, and for their style and humor and resilience in the face of overwhelming loss and in the face of the challenges before them. The ETC website is linked here if you wish to understand more of what our program is all about.

It is for all these reasons the ETC staff and students are shocked and saddened by an anonymous letter which has been sent out to many of our sponsors in an effort to discredit and raise doubts about our organization. The letter alleges any number of far fetched and shocking items, but is 100% false in every way. The most telling sign is that the author was too cowardly to sign their real name.

Most of the people the letter has been sent to are long time supporters of the ETC and friends who have a great deal of contact with the program, and have watched us grow and cheered us on. For these people, it is easily recognized for what it is. However we are concerned that the letter may reach some new or potential supporters and raise concerns about the integrity of the ETC. Therefore we are sending this alert and our response out to everyone we know. We regret that it is necessary to waste anyone’s time or attention span with such things, as there is a great deal of other things for us to spend our time on, but Pascal and I thought that it would be best to alert people before they receive it. This seemed like the most professional way to handle it.

In any case, We are here to say that the ETC is and has always been a great program and that none of the rubbish this person wrote is remotely true or accurate. Such behavior would be impossible as we have a constant flow of visitors, supporters, and journalists every week, (many of you are among them) and we will continue to welcome anyone and everyone to check out our program first hand, announced or unannounced. We are confident that if you do visit, you will be inspired, amazed, and proud to have helped us. Our response to the anonymous letter, including letters from all our students and a few other members of the ETC community is posted below. If anyone would like to add their response to the ETC official response we welcome you to write in.

ETC Tsunami Anniversary Commemoration

The students of the ETC gathered at Khao Lak’s beach on Christmas Day to hold a private ceremony to remember their lost family members and friends. We lit prayer candles and each student spoke a few words and then we lit a pile of wood that was collected as part of the ETC massive beach clean up efforts in the local area. Reuters photographers captured a few nice shots and they have turned up in several of the world’s largest newspapers and news service websites.

Technorati Tags: khao lak, thailand , tsunami anniversary

Tid’s Longtail Report

Hello Everybody,

I am Tid. I am a divemaster in training with the ETC program. I work on the longtail boats and I’m the captain of one of them. They are set up for diving and very beautiful. They have Kabota Diesel motors. We think that we need to make a shorter prop, because the prop is too long and it makes it difficult to drive the boat.