LopBuri
Thailand
Khao Samyot Wat Phrabat Nampu AIDS Memorial since 1 July 1992
without names
The Buddhist cloister Wat Phrabat Nampu has started an aids hospice in 1992 to care for people with aids and for children orphaned by aidsparents.
The Wat Phrabat Nampu monument for people who died of AIDS more or less created itself. In the past, the deceased sufferers were traditionally cremated on the hill. The remaining bones were taken to the ground floor of the monks’ prayer temple, to the left of the Walailak building, in order to be crushed into powder and put in small bags. According to Thai custom, the ashes were then sent to the families of the deceased, but most families rejected them and returned them to the Buddhist temple.
The ground floor was thus used as a permanent resting place for the remains. This place was isolated and, due in part to its tiny windows, was rarely visited. Furthermore, it soon became much too small for the hundreds of additional bags which were received.
In the meantime, the idea that the physical reminder of patients who had died of AIDS should be hidden away and out of sight, which is exactly what society was being criticised of, was overturned. It was thus decided to use a part of the covered Dharma meditation room, in a more central part of the complex next to the Mattatham building and a place which is also visited by guided tours.
The first bags were, therefore, placed in a more respectful and visible location around the big Buddha statue. Later on, due to climatic influences, the bags were placed in windows as can be seen today.
And so the monument came to be, a monument which is still incomplete. It shall only be complete once AIDS has been eradicated from Thailand.

Dramaraksa Foundation Wat Phrabat Nampu