Community Development

The first task that the DPF undertook beyond education and child care was to help slum dwellers achieve official recognition for themselves, their children and their homes. A birth certificate and house registration are essential documents for all Thais. Without a birth certificate they cannot have an identity card. Without an identity card they cannot go to a state school or get a job. Houses which are unregistered are technically illegal and the occupants do not have the right to essential public utilities. This has meant that slum people have been denied citizenship rights and as a result they have tended to share the conventional outsiders view that they were second class citizens. Their homes without drainage, water or electricity inevitably deteriorated, contributing to the squalor and hopelessness that characterized slum living.

Now with the cooperation of the Ministry of the Interior, the DPF is able to provide a continuing effective registration programme which will help slum dwellers play their full part as citizens in Thai society. The foundation still assists slum dwellers if they have difficulty registering but mostly now help from Foundation staff is not necessary.

In the past evicted slum dwellers were moved to poor land with no access to jobs and no support. Needless to say the majority moved back into the city's slums.

Today, however, the DPF is able to assist communities threatened with eviction in several ways. Since it is regarded by government agencies and slum communities as an honest broker, it can negotiate with landowners for suitable compensation for evicted families. It contacts funding agencies to provide loans for building materials and land purchase; and it helps communities to organise their own resettlement and rebuilding programmes.

The DPF can follow this up with assistance in establishing kindergartens, child-care centres and other facilities for child and community development. In this way the DPF is able to make genuine inroads into the hitherto insoluble problems of urban poverty.

As an NGO that has amassed considerable experience, the DPF takes seriously its role of complementing local and national government initiatives in the slums. With its specialized knowledge of slum conditions and close contact with people in the community, it is now capable of influencing policy as well as responding to it.

Foundation staff are often leading training sessions for community representatives or arranging opportunities for slum-dwellers to attend training sessions elsewhere. Not all the training is directly focused on the situation facing slum dwellers, ensuring that people in poor communities are aware of issues in the wider world, is also important.

In recent times Duang Prateep Foundation staff have been particularly involved in computer training. Small scale entrepreneurs in Khlong Toei Slum have been empowered through computer training. Foundation staff have given computer training to slum dwellers of all ages from children to senior citizens. Foundation staff have also led computer courses for community leaders and non-government workers from all over the country, who have returned to their communities trained to teach people in their own areas about computer use.

Duang Prateep Foundation staff also work closely with slum youth groups. Foundation staff coordinate with youth groups, helping with the organisation of activities such as sports events, campaigns and cultural festivals. DPF staff also take slum youngsters away on camps. At such events, as well as having fun, leadership potential among the young people can be developed and youngsters can be encouraged to become active in their communities.

Another popular activitiy for slum youngsters has been the role they play at the Khlong Toei community radio set up by the DPF in a small room on the side of the Duang Prateep Kindergarten. Slum youths enjoy working as DJs outside school hours.

Another group that the Duang Prateep Foundation does not forget is the disabled slum dwellers. The daunting dual burdens of poverty and disability, make life particularly hard for the disabled in slum communities. The Duang Prateep Foundation believes in encouraging disabled slum dwellers to fulfill their potential as much as possible. To this end, the Duang Prateep Foundation has helped disabled slum dwellers register with the Department of Public Welfare, so that they can receive the education, training and assistance to which they are entitled to. Foundation staff have also arranged meetings for the disabled, to inform them of their rights.

At heart, the DPF remains first and foremost what it has always been, a peoples organisation, identifying with the aspirations of poor communities. The DPF building in the centre of the Khlong Toei Slum area is the site of seminars, training sessions and workshops for local people and a forum where slum communities can develop contacts with the outside world.