In the past 25 years Thailand has experienced rapid growth and industrialization; especially in Bangkok, where a huge influx of labor force is facilitated by the sprouting skyline and high-rise buildings. However, the economic crisis of 1997 which sent shockwaves through Southeast Asia, has reversed the success of those boom years.
The boom and the bust has created a large unemployed workforce sending many people back to rural areas where the economy and lifestyle was already constrained by the country's growing disparity between the urban rich and the rural poor. The cost of living, especially for large families, has made food, health and education too expensive.
In facing all of these problems, Mr. Mechai Viravaidya decided in 1974 to devote himself to the task of rural development starting by educating people about birth control and family planning through the Community- Based Family Planning Services (CBFPS) program under the National Family Planning Project of the Ministry of Health.
After three years CBFPS became its own entity as the Population and Community Development Association or PDA. By this stage PDA had 14 branches throughout the country with 12,000 volunteers in Bangkok and upcountry dealing in family planning covering a service area of more than 157 districts in 48 provinces.
However, due to the lack of serious control in the population's growth and rapid increase, Thailand's birth rate jumped to 3.3% per year after 1974, one of the highest birth rates in the world.
This was a result of a lack of education and people to inform and advise. Moreover, the services rendered were inaccessible and inconvenient as a family planning service.
PDA therefore initiated the promotion and support of family planning services project which provided volunteers to tackle community family planning, education, birth control materials, pills and condoms. These services and products were distributed to target areas that were not covered by the Ministry at the time.
PDA in cooperation with the District Office selected and trained volunteers from villagers in the community who were closely associated with its members. The volunteers have to be well known and respected in each community, and their household should be convenient and accessible for the provision of services.
With a service point in the heart of a community, maximum convenience for neighbors and villagers dramatically improved the promotion of family planning. The utilization of volunteers also promoted a community helping the community aspect which involved them taking the time to visit and educate housewives as well as handing out birth control devices.
Birth control was promoted through an incentive scheme aimed at educating both Thai and Hilltribe women the benefits of planning. For example a villager who used family planning services could receive special discounts at the volunteer's grocery shop or even a beauty salon in some cases.
Incentives such as these were also applied to urban areas where PDA has recruited volunteers from industrial plants, slums and even taxi drivers. These people can give advice, family planning training and arrange free vasectomy services for willing customers. A mobile vasectomy van also provided services to sites where it was inconvenient for workers or villagers to go to a center.
So as to further facilitate the work force, PDA offers free male vasectomies on special occasions such as Father's Day, Labor Day and other national days such "Kangaroo Vasectomy" on Australia Day, "Dragon Vasectomy", for China; and "Eagle Vasectomy" for the Fourth of July celebrations of the USA - where free hot dogs were given to every vasectomy recipient. Nonetheless, free male vasectomies are provided every day at PDA.
As a result of PDA's extensive family planning efforts in conjunction with the national program, Thailand's birth rate experienced a dramatic drop from 3.3% to only 1.2% today.
At the same time, PDA offered health check-ups and x-ray services to students who passed entrance exams to university. PDA also arranged health check-ups at schools, factories and villages. PDA educated rural people on the importance of toilets and constructed sanitary toilets in ill-serviced villages across the regions. The toilets were constructed in agreement with villagers so they contributed funding and labor and thus created personal interest in the prevention of the spread of intestinal and parasite diseases.
With family planning and the population explosion brought under control, PDA's attention soon focused on the AIDS pandemic which threatened and still threatens to this day, to significantly impede the development of Thailand and kill thousands of people in the process. The first AIDS victim in Thailand was detected in 1984 and now the current number of infected people stands at more than 850,000. If this problem is not tackled, one in every three deaths in Thailand will be AIDS related.
Currently there is still no cure for AIDS, therefore PDA has undertaken the task of disseminating accurate information about the disease by distributing pamphlets, stickers, posters and television documentaries. This information has focused on the prevention of the spread of AIDS as well as the proper treatment and care of People Living with AIDS. The campaign to change sexual norms of behavior in society, particularly that of people involved in the sex industry, young people, and the public in general. Several sex and AIDS education projects tackled the issue through training and peer group exercises in schools, prisons and other groups in the community.
In cooperation with the Ministry of Interior, PDA also trained government officers, district officers, governors and community leaders such as monks, to inform the wider community about AIDS. Training was also organized for employees of private companies to make them aware of the dangers and to de-stigmatize the disease.
An anonymous mobile clinic unit also provided blood tests for AIDS in areas close to red light districts and places of entertainment, so that anyone could be tested in strict confidence and privacy. Moreover, PDA conducted "Condom Nights" and "Miss Anti-AIDS Beauty Pageants" in the most popular sex districts of Bangkok. This provided an excellent opportunity to inform the target group at most risk in society, prostitutes and their clients, about AIDS and distribute condoms and anti-AIDS materials.
PDA also opened the Tarn Nam Jai Baby Home, which literally translated means "Stream of Kindness Baby Home". The home fostered babies who had been abandoned by their HIV positive mothers. This home was open to all donations and visitors in Bangkok, however it is now to be moved to the Northeast for mothers and their children.
After the significant efforts with villagers through family planning, it was realized that there was more to develop; for example clean and accessible water. PDA therefore organized a water resource development project in 1980, stressing the need to minimize disease from contaminated water supplies. Villagers were instructed to build and maintain the so-called "Mechai rainwater jars" (tanks) in a cooperative effort.
Each villager helped build water jars for every household under the close supervision of a PDA member. Eventually every household in every village targeted possessed its own water tank. The joint work performed by the villagers demonstrated that community development was possible in the Thailand context.
As a result of PDA's efforts, over 20,000 rainwater tanks were installed to provide a year round source of clean water for consumption. Water resource development was also extended to utilizing shallow and deep wells, freshwater water supplies and dikes according to each village's needs. In fact, water resource development was just the start to PDA's overall development program, because the reason for the shortage in water was the lack of rainfall during the rainy season which is ultimately caused by the lack of forests. Therefore, PDA was forced to realize that more than one problem existed and thus began to train people in the values of the environment and to take care of their forests and make them aware of the impact of logging and destruction.
PDA also promoted reforestation and convinced villagers to grow and maintain perennial trees such as Acacia, Indian Laburnum, Crudia Chrysantha, Azelia Xylocarpa which was grown on village public land. A village greenhouse was built and a local conservation and education organization set up to inform the farmers about the conservation of wild life, forest soil, water resources and the cultivation of non-toxic vegetables.
PDA's most recent efforts in creating environmental awareness have been brought together in the new Student Environmental and Education Demonstration Project, SEED for short. School children are taught about nature conservation through the means of a mobile environmental unit covered in speculator designs of endangered species and vegetation. Elephants are also being used as an educating tool in outdoor nature classes which allow children to touch and experience a new sphere of knowledge - the environment.
When health and the environment have been successfully developed in a village, PDA moves on to installing artesian wells and a vegetable bank as a means to increase the villager's income, especially in the arid areas of the Northeast. Public land is usually provided free of charge and portioned off to villagers for cultivation, usually the poorest and landless farmers receive a plot.
PDA assigns project officers and agricultural experts to offer training, technology and advice to farmers in order that they may grow high-yield crops. PDA staff also provide financial advice and assistance in marketing and market information so that crops are sold. PDA also encouraged farmers to rotate their crops so as not to rely on one crop in one market, and also because the single-crop solution usually destroys the fertility of the top soil.
PDA has also encouraged villagers to earn extra income by raising animals with modern methods including chickens, ducks, geese, fish, cows, pigs and whatever is deemed suitable to the region and the market.
Women have always been essential in PDA's approach to development, and has been included and encouraged as another main source of income. Handicraft or cottage industries such as cane-work, pottery, silk weaving, vegetable growing, food preservation and shampoo manufacturing using Aloe Vera and Kaffir Lime; are just some of the skills and industries PDA has promoted in the village.
However, insufficient funds have always been a constant problem therefore PDA enlisted the help of other donors and private sector sponsors, to organize village development funds so that villagers can receive low interest soft loans not to be paid until they can make a profit.
Each village has its own revolving loan fund committee which allocates loans for the farmers to start up cultivation. Eventually when the times comes that the farmer can pay his loan off, PDA will re-circulate the money into other development projects for the village.
Funding for PDA's development activities predominantly comes from foreign donors who have supported the organization for a sustained period. However, the current situation in the nation's economy means that there is not enough support to continue all of PDA's various projects. PDA therefore has sought funding from the domestic private sector concentrating on private companies.
The primary objective to generating income in the rural areas is to bridge the income gap between the urban and rural people. The reason that income is uniformly lower in the rural sector is because the people lack skills in business, finance, management, production and marketing. Crops produced through conventional agricultural methods have lacked quality and usually in surplus.
The solution is to recruit the private sector companies who are experienced and successful into rural development activities. These business-minded people can provide unique insights into development which are different from government and PDA rural project officers.
By inviting companies who are interested in social development and improving the lives of the rural poor, the "Business for Society" project or TBIRD, the Thai Business Initiative in Rural Development, was created.
A TBIRD company provides funding and financial
support for PDA to conduct village surveys and evaluation to
determine the project and sponsor's performance. The company is
also responsible for transferring technology and knowledge in
manufacturing, management, marketing, finance and accounting,
while also providing machinery and raw materials to the villagers
who do not have employment opportunities. This enables villagers
to learn and produce both agricultural and industrial products
and helps to improve their business skills. Ultimately, villagers
will be given a chance to increase their income and improve their
standard of living. When villagers are able to earn income and
feel secure, the idea and incentive to migrate to Bangkok for
work will soon diminish.
Since TBIRD's inception in 1989, over 70 companies have joined the project in separate initiatives which include the whole range of integrated development. This unique "business for society" project provides companies with an opportunity to display corporate social responsibility; and above all, the opportunity to distribute social and economic wealth to the rural areas. TBIRD provides Thailand with an alternative to government and foreign structured support - which is a requirement of the National Social and Economic Development Plan.
PDA has also organized international seminars and training courses for foreign development workers to study our development techniques and learn from our experiences. Courses are conducted five times per year and focus on Family Planning, AIDS, Rural Development, TBIRD, Gender Issues, Training of Trainers and Management, participants are taken on study tours to see development in practice. These courses also provide PDA with the opportunity to exchange experience and data with our foreign counterparts and since The Asian Center started in 1978, more than 2,000 participants from 54 countries have attended the Center.
The development of a nation can be achieved only when the quality of life for all Thai people is improved to a satisfactory standard. PDA is not the sole contributor but believes that the community as a whole - in all sectors of society; private, public and non-profit can join together in a new civil society movement. Today the Population and Community Development Association is proud to have contributed to improving the standard and quality of life in Thailand; however we endeavor to continue our struggle in the rural areas where the government's efforts require our support in the betterment of the country, both at the local and national levels.