Change takes the whole community
Published on Sep 5, 2003

On the 25th anniversary of the Duang Prateep Foundation, its leader reflects on the changes in the Klong Toei slum. The rickety wooden boardwalks have been replaced by concrete paths. There is no more morning walk to get water, as most households are connected to the water mains. Electricity cables are overhead, colour televisions are blaring in many houses and motorcycles snake through narrow alleyway.

So has the situation improved in Klong Toei slum on the 25th anniversary of the Duang Prateep Foundation, the NGO which I founded?

The answer is not a simple one. There have been many improvements, but also new problems arise and old problems worsen.

The most obvious improvements are in the slum infrastructure, but utilities and dry walkways are not what makes or breaks a community. What matters to me is the thinking of the 100,000 residents of the Klong Toei slum.

One major improvement over the years has been the changing attitude to education. When my mother was saving money to ensure that I had four years of primary education, it was rare to have a slum child go to school. Parents were mostly uneducated and had little comprehension of how education could help their children. Now, 40 years on, however poor they might be, education is a priority for most slum families.

People have seen the benefits education has brought to other families in their neighbourhood. They have seen the job security and the improved income, and they want the same for their children.

I have seen too many evictions. More than once, I myself experienced the pain of having to leave a home and set up house on a new site. I have often had to intervene when communities are faced with the threat of violence if they do not abandon their homes quickly. I am grateful that now landowners are now less likely to resort to violence or arson to force a speedy eviction.

Nowadays with the help of NGOs like the Coordinating Organisation for Development Institute, communities are better able to cope with eviction. The residents can usually negotiate a planned relocation to a new site, without the violence so common in the past.

So there have been changes for the better, but also for the worse.

The shadow Aids has cast across Thai society over the last 15 years is a new problem which has changed the nature of community work. It was in 1988 when my foundation discovered that 75 per cent of a group of addicts were HIV positive.

In the early years of Aids education, foundation staff were derided for talking about a danger that most Thais did not take seriously. Times change, however, and when subsequent Thai governments awoke to the threat, NGOs were the heart of the struggle against Aids.

Now, there is some concern that complacency might be creeping in once more. The government should do more to educate Thai teenagers, especially in an era when there is so much more teenage promiscuity.

When most people think of Klong Toei, they think of drugs. The slum's association with drugs is not totally unearned. In the past, it was mostly elderly opium smokers. Since then there have been waves of addiction to heroin, solvents and most recently methamphetamines.

The recent anti-drugs crackdown, which has caused the price of drugs to soar in Klong Toei, has brought positive results, though some aspects of the crackdown were disturbing. Anti-drug operations should focus on the demand side of the drugs equation. As long as the demand for drugs is there, suppliers will always find a way.

The most important aspect of the Duang Prateep Foundation's work over the last 25 years has been the support for community initiatives. Strong community organisations bring people together to tackle their own problems.

After 25 years, the Duang Prateep Foundation has grown from a skeleton staff in one room, to a highly-professional organisation which has both the ear of slum dwellers and the government.

It is over 30 years since I started my "One Baht a Day" school underneath my parents' house. Teamwork is essential and community leaders, foundation staff and benefactors have in different ways made important contributions to the work of the Duang Prateep Foundation.

-Prateep Ungsongtham Hata

Prateep Ungsongtham Hata is a senator and founder of the Duang Prateep Foundation.

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