Sister Joan Evans spent most of her 25 years in Thailand living alone in the middle of Klong Toei – Bangkok’s largest slum. She assisted the youngest, the not-so-young and the old with determination, patience and urgency. She made sure that she didn’t provide everything but just enough so people “can learn to help themselves”, as she liked to say. She rarely spoke about her religion, and focused instead on solving problems big and small, as much as the days would permit. Sister slept when she could, as her support was often needed from sun-up till late in the evening, from an early morning bus fare for someone late for school to a middle-of-the-night emergency ride to take a sick person to hospital. People of all ages, including many children eager for a drink, would knock and queue at her door every day. She worked alone, but over time more and more volunteers came to help as the years went on.

Sister was a model of compassion and commitment to the less fortunate, a lady from a land of plenty who was aware of the needs in both Rong Moo and adjacent slum communities. She created projects that relied on volunteers but fine tuned them to allow any person to jump in and accomplish the task. Her methods and systems are still used and no volunteer spends more than a few hours a week on their work in Klong Toei.

Sister Joan was a member of the Western Australian congregation, formally known as Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (PBVM) order. Before coming to Thailand, she was a teacher at Iona College, a girls school in an affluent part of Perth, the city where she was born in 1932, and a headmistress of a school in Geraldton (414km north of Perth).
When she retired at 60, she decided to move to Bangkok to help the poor in the spirit of Nano Nagle – a legendary Irish woman who founded schools for poor children and then set up the Presentation Sisters order in Cork, in southern Ireland, in 1775. After Nagle’s death in 1784, the Presentation order won papal approval from Pope Pius VII (in 1805) and spread rapidly across Ireland and eventually to every continent. As of 2024, they were still active in at least 19 countries. Sister Joan had a picture of Nagle on the wall of the kitchen in her shack in the Rong Moo slum.

Sister started a number of charitable programs in which she would enrol, register and support members of several different communities of Klong Toei. She provided milk formula to young mums that couldn’t breast feed, regularly gave hundreds of children cash for food and bus fares so they wouldn’t drop out of school. She also bought shoes and uniforms for hundreds of children prior to the start of the school year in April or May and throughout their education. She also sponsored students in their university efforts, took the elderly and sick to local hospitals, gave elderly bi-weekly food packages and helped anyone from Klong Toei to assist themselves. Her programs worked with registered recipients, all needing help and receiving it in yearly cycles.

Sister Joan’s efforts won consistent support from Australian ambassadors posted to the embassy in Bangkok, and she was often the recipient of funds collected by the Australian and New Zealand Women’s Group, British Women’s Group, SILC, as well as Australian servicemen and women who passed through the region. She also gave briefings on the lives of the poor to high-level visitors, such as Foreign Minister Stephen Smith in the late 2000s, and took their wives and children for short tours of Rong Moo and other slums.

In 2016, Sister Joan returned to Perth, but paid a final return trip to Bangkok in early 2017, when she was saddened to see a fire had destroyed dozens of the homes adjacent to her long-term wooden shack. She said she was warned many times by her mentor and long-term supporter Father Joe Maier, who still runs the Mercy Centre Aids hospice and multiple schools in Klong Toei, about the risk of fires to people living in the slums.

Sister Joan Evans PBVM quietly passed away on Sep 29, 2025 surrounded by her fellow Sisters.

Photos of Sister and her work over the years (if you have photos you’d like to add, please email them).