Chantal, how did you meet the doctor, and why did you choose to write his story?

Chantal Jauvin: "I met Dr. Amporn in March of 2010 when I was on a visit to Thailand with my then-fiancé, who is now my husband. He had been sponsoring children with Dr. Amporn’s charity for many years, and of course I wanted to meet them. On the day that I went to visit, two little girls that were in school that day asked the staff if we could leave the school grounds and they could show me their homes [in Bangkok].

"As we walked out…the little girls were the cleanest they could be, in their little uniforms, happy. But what they brought me to was mountains of garbage and real poverty. Their houses were literally a floor, four bedroom poles, and roof made out of blue tarp. There’s such a dichotomy to see the joy of these children and yet the dire situations in which they lived.

"After the walk, we went back to the school for lunch, and that’s where I met Dr. Amporn. Over lunch, he started telling me his story, and the more I listened and I thought of the children that were playing next to us, the more I realised the importance of the story to be told.

"I just believe that education is really the hope for the future for any country. To see that Dr. Amporn had lived in even worse circumstances than those kids and that he was able to do what he’s done with his life, I just thought, The world has to know about this. He asked me to write his story at that lunch, and I said yes. That became basically a four-year project of research and interviews."