School Visits
The Bangkok School for The Blind
Bangkok, Thailand
In the summer of 2026, we were thrilled to visit The Bangkok School for the Blind. Located in the heart of the city, the school is home to about 250 visually impaired students from 1st to 6th grade, who spend their days building academic skills alongside the confidence and independence to navigate everyday life with their disability.
We were surprised and delighted to discover just how athletic and active the students are. After school, they dive into sports ranging from soccer and judo to goalball. We even had the rare chance to try goalball ourselves — an indoor team sport designed for athletes with visual impairments, where two teams of three compete to roll a ball past their opponents and into the goal.
Getting to know the students at The Bangkok School for the Blind, and seeing how fully they embrace life despite their visual impairment, was a privilege we won't soon forget.
School Information
Year Founded 1939
Number of Student 250 students
School Website Click Here
Our Contribution
55
Number of sport goods in pieces ranging from Football, volleyball, Basketball, to Hula Hoops
25,000
Amount in Thai Baht spent to acquired these brand new sport equipments
5
Number of different exercises and athletic programs that can benefit from our contribution
250
Number of students now can have more fun being active in sports.
Gallery
Why We Visited
Follow Thru exists to make sports more accessible to communities that are too often overlooked, and this year the visually impaired community here in Bangkok was very much on our minds.
We had heard about the incredible spirit of the students at The Bangkok School for the Blind — kids who love to play, compete, and move, despite navigating the world without full sight — and we wanted to see that for ourselves. More than a one-time gift, we wanted our visit to say something simple but important: that access to sport matters just as much for these students as it does for anyone else. Reaching out to the school felt like a natural extension of everything Follow Thru stands for, and we hoped that a donation of proper, purpose-built sports equipment could open the door to more play, more confidence, and more connection for the students there.
What We Provided
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Goalball balls — Goalball is a sport built specifically for blind and visually impaired athletes, so the ball itself is specialized: it's roughly the size and weight of a basketball, but perforated with holes and fitted with internal bells, so players can track its location and speed by sound alone as it rolls across the court.
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Soccer balls for the blind (with bells inside) — regulation-style soccer balls fitted with internal bells, letting players hear the ball as it moves and follow the game by ear.
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Regular soccer balls — standard soccer balls without bells, which the school can fit with their own as needed, giving them a way to keep their supply of playable balls going as bells wear out over time.
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Lunch and snacks — to keep spirits high through the day and make the visit feel like a celebration, not just a handoff.
What We Learned
What stayed with us most was the students' energy and their courage — the way they carried themselves with such positivity despite the challenges their disability presents day to day. It was humbling to witness.
We also came away with a sharper understanding of a cost most people never think about: adaptive sports equipment is dramatically more expensive than its standard counterpart. A soccer ball fitted with bells for a visually impaired player runs about 3,000 baht, compared to roughly 900 baht for a regular ball. There's a real reason for some of that gap — the internal bell mechanism and reinforced construction aren't cheap to produce — but a markup of more than three times is still a steep barrier for schools and families who are already stretched thin.
It's a gap we think deserves more awareness, and it's part of why ongoing support for programs like this matters.