NAVARATNA, 29 YEARS

Dear host family,

Hello and nice to meet you. My Navaratna Thong-o-phat. My nickname is Raht. I am 23 years old candidate from Bangkok, Thailand. I am keen on becoming an Au Pair in Europe because I have fascination for it and eager to learn about it as well as gain new experiences and knowledge to develop myself and grow as a person. I am open-minded when it comes to a host country. I prefer a small town to big city. I am hoping to meet a nice family which is willing to welcome me to be a part of their family and teach me about their country and its culture.

My parents are divorced when I was 17 by that time. I’d lived with my father and my uncle’s family since then. Nowadays, I am renting an apartment with my little sister in Bangkok. Despite the divorce, I still maintain good relationship with my mother and usually visit her whenever I find a chance. As a single parent, my father, make sure to raise me and my sister with love and care, so we never felt we miss anything in life really.

I studied Science-Mathematics program when I was in high school. Now I’m study in a University, in a faculty of Science, majoring in Chemistry. I chose this program because everything in our lives is made of chemicals; therefore, I think it is essential to know about chemistry to understand the world around us.
I participated in school Sports Day parade, was a member of school science drama on global warming topic and yes, mangrove forest planting to restore the balance of nature’s abundance and eco-system.
I’ve worked as a freelance tutor since March. My work is about teaching children outside of school at their own home to give them extra help with school subjects they find difficult. I am happy with my job and I get along well with the children and their parents.

I can say that I am a good listener, easily adaptable to a new environment, have a firm grip on my ideologies, polite, open-minded, warm, patient, good sense of responsibility. I am careful and thoughtful when it comes to problem solving. Usually I avoid behaviors that might make problem worse. I make sure I have gather information and evaluate the situation before taking action. I seek for consultant from those who are experienced with the similar problem as they are usually the best advisor.

I am interested in singing and often hum the songs that I listen to. I enjoy doing karaoke alone. I have ever taken part in school singing competition once. I have never taken voice lessons, but I enjoy reading about voice and vocal technic to sing in tune and then practice. I am interested in Russian and German too. Ever since I was a kid I have thought that speaking foreign languages was cool, but I never did much with it because I had never had much motivation for the topic. But, nowadays we can learn anything online for free so I decided to learn Russian and German, because the languages sound so beautiful. I do enjoy reading them, and in fact, they are not as complicated as I thought.

I have 300 hours of childcare experiences when I was a trainee at three-nurse nursery. There I worked 24 hours per week. What I have learned from the childcare training is to understand child’s nature, growth and development. I see children losing themselves in a creative project for hours, such as playing with clay, building a sandcastle. Children find true joy while playing with friends and they love making new ones. For some reason, as we get older, we stop seeing creative activities as worthwhile. With children I usually do a jigsaw puzzle, using Japanese abacus, folding paper (origami), rhymes with actions, role play and pretend play.

For me, it is important to tell children what the right thing to do is, instead of saying what the wrong thing is. For example, say “Please sit on the furniture and put your feet on the floor” Not just to say “Don't jump on the couch”. When they do something good, let them know that I have noticed and praise them with applause or say "Thank you for cleaning up the toys after playing with them!" to let them know exactly what is being appreciated. If they misbehave, tell them that such behavior is unacceptable and suggest alternatives and then explain why the behavior was bad.

Of course as an Au Pair I am ready to adapt, learn and get the most out of everything the opportunity offers. I can help my host family with household chores related. I am willing to do light housework, shopping, make the host parents' bed, iron but not too much. During my free time as an Au Pair, I would go out into the bazaar or local market, walk around and explore a new place and document it with photo. And I would take to native speakers to improve my English conversation skills and at the same time to make new friends too.

I believe I am going to make a great au pair for my host family because It’s not just my social skills, which have helped me develop great relationships with the children I teach. But I’m also passionate about helping and taking part in child’s development and full with joy and happiness when seeing their growing healthy and happy.

I love what I am working that is about teaching children outside of school, besides I want to improve my speaking skills in English. To me, becoming an au pair is such a golden opportunity to get a lot of experiences abroad, to learn new cultures and at the same time to share my own culture too. I believe living in a new environment from home will improve my social communication skill. There are few cultural differences between Thailand and Europe. From greetings, to food, so exploring different cultures can help open up my eyes to new things and help me understand the world better. After the program I am going to return to Thailand to continue my education as it’s very important to my life and future.

Thank you very much for your time reading my letter. I hope you would like my qualification and would consider me to become your Au Pair.

Sincerely Yours,
Raht