Princess visits Klong Toey slum.
Last month Her Royal Highness Princess Ubolratana, the oldest daughter of King Bhumibol, visited Klong Toey Slum in her new role as an anti-drugs campaigner. Princess Ubolratana first visited Chumchon Moo Baan Pattana School, the school originally started by DPF Secretary General Prateep Ungsongtham Hata and which is now next door to the Duang Prateep Foundation building. At the school, there were speeches by the Minister of Public Health, the local MP, the assistant national police chief and DPF Secretary General Senator Prateep Ungsongtham Hata.
In her speech, Prateep talked about the sporting and recreational activities taking place in the slum communities in a bid to keep slum dwellers away from drugs. Prateep also talked about the New Life Projects to rehabilitate addicts, which the foundation has set up in Chumphon and Kanchanaburi provinces.
Princess Ubolratana answered some questions from the large audience at the school. The princess said she was concerned about the widespread use of drugs, especially methamphetamines, which had increased sharply in the community.
"Drug suppression is a difficult task for any person to handle alone. But if we help each other, I am certain that the situation will improve," she said.
After the meeting at Chumchon Moo Baan Pattana School, Princess Ubolratana toured part of the slum community, stopping to talk to many residents. The Princess also visited the Locks 1,2,3 Children's Centre, a kindergarten affiliated to the Duang Prateep Foundation. The princess' visit to the Klong Toey communities lasted over two hours.
There is further information about the drugs situation in Klong Toey and Princess Ubolratana's anti-drugs activities in the News from Thailand section of this newsletter.
The photos show Princess Ubolratana receiving information about the drugs situation in Klong Toey Slum from Prateep Ungsongtham Hata and the princess entering the Locks 1,2 3 Children’s Centre.
DPF to set up fund for victims of chemical fires at Bangkok Port
The Duang Prateep Foundation has agreed to set up and manage a fund to help victims of the chemical blazes at the Bangkok Port. The seed money for the fund has been donated by the Bangkok Post newspaper.
Recently the Bangkok Post won the annual news reporting contest organised by the Thai Journalists Association. The entry, which won the top prize in both the general news and environmental news category, detailed the ordeal of victims of the chemical blaze which hit Klong Toey Slum in 1991.
The Post will add 50,000 baht to the 50,000 baht prize money to make seed money for a fund, which will be managed by the Duang Prateep Foundation, to help the remaining victims of the chemical blaze. The 30,000 baht prize money for the environmental news prize will be donated to the victims of other environmental disasters.
Post deputy editor Veera Prateepchaikul praised Ms. Usa for her courage in standing up against the port authority.
"We thank Usa for our rewards, for without her courage and unwavering determination to fight for justice we would not be able to write her story."
Last month also saw the Port Authority of Thailand finally pay compensation to two victims of the 1991 chemical fire, after a six-year court battle. The deputy transport and communications minister visited Klong Toey slum to hand over a cheque for 147,000 baht to Bang-ern Charoenlak, 60, and another worth 2.02 million baht to Somchai Charoenvorakijkan, 52.
Mr. Somchai was a volunteer fire-fighter at the time of the 1991 fire. Ms. Bang-ern is the mother of Usa Rojpongkasem, who was paid 3.2 million baht by the Port Authority of Thailand last November.
Hong Kong Child Ambassadors visit DPF
Last month fifteen teenagers from Hong Kong visited the Duang Prateep Foundation on a trip organised by the Hong Kong Committee on Children's Rights. The Hong Kong Child Ambassadors were aged between 13 and 17. They were accompanied by two staff and two reporters.
The group from Hong Kong were informed about the situation of the urban poor in Bangkok and the work of the Duang Prateep Foundation. They toured the community near the Duang Prateep Foundation before meeting with about twenty young slum dwellers who are active in their communities and who came to the foundation after school had finished. The youngsters from Hong Kong and Klong Toey took part in a discussion about children's rights before having a party together at the DPF.
Sponsorship Section News
Last month a group of fifty youngsters aged between thirteen and fifteen went to join with children from other development organisations at a two-day workshop in Nakhon Nayok Province. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss children's rights. The workshop agreed that children have four basic rights: The right to safety, the right to development, the right to participate and the right to protection.
Twenty representatives of sponsored children and the Duang Prateep Foundation joined over 200 others in a demonstration at the Education Ministry, calling for consultation and clarity in the education reform process. Education reform will be introduced in the coming months but most parents have little information as to how the changes will affect their children.
Also last month, an American volunteer hosted two training sessions on the making of photo albums. The sessions were attended by ten guardians of sponsored children with the objective of learning ideas for future income generation activities.
Last month forty-five sponsored children were invited to attend the spectacular "River of Kings III: The Great Conquerors"cultural performance and sound and light show which took place on the Chao Phaya river in Bangkok last month. Princess Ubolratana was chairperson of the organising committee for the show.
Aids Control Project educates about Aids and tuberculosis
In recent weeks Aids Control Project staff have arranged two training sessions to instruct community volunteers in the care of people suffering from Aids and also tuberculosis. A total of 120 people attended the two one-day courses. The trained volunteers will assist families who have people suffering from Aids and TB and will pass on information in their communities. The volunteers agreed to meet regularly once each month to exchange information and keep abreast of developments.
Tuberculosis is the most commonly reported opportunistic infection for people with Aids, affecting 29% of Aids cases overall. An estimated 50,000 people are infected with tuberculosis each year and irregular medicine consumption often prevents a proper cure and leads to the spread of the disease.
The Aids Control Project also arranged a half-day meeting for 250 motorcycle taxi drivers. The meeting looked at safe driving techniques and rules and regulations for road use and on road courtesy. The meeting also discussed the organisation of a cooperative for motorcycle taxi drivers. The Aids Control Project staff have been working with motorcycle taxi drivers for many years. The motorcyclists have helped Aids project staff in the dissemination of Aids information. The motorcycle taxi workers are useful contacts for Aids Control Project staff, as they are people who have regular contacts with large numbers of fellow slum dwellers.
Last month, the head of the Duang Prateep Foundation's Aids Control Project, Ms. Nittaya Prompochuenboon, received an award as an outstanding social worker from the Professor Prakorn Angsusingh Foundation. Ms. Nittaya has been head of the Aids Control Project at the Duang Prateep Foundation since the beginning of the project in 1988.
Camp for hearing-impaired children and guardians
Last month the Special Education Project at the DPF took a group of seventy on a two-day camp at the Royal Thai Navy base at Sattahip, east of Bangkok. The party was made up of children at the DPF's school for hearing-impaired children, their guardians and their teachers.
The group played several games and took part in discussions about hearing-impairment and overcoming disabilities. One activity gave the guardians a feeling for sense deprivation, as they were blindfolded and lead by their hearing-impaired children.
The photo shows a hearing-impaired child leading her blindfolded parents during a game at the Sattahip camp.
Nithan Caravan on the road
Recently the Nithan Caravan mobile puppet troupe performed at the Pakkret home for physically and mentally handicapped children. The two shows, in front of a total audience of three hundred disabled children were sponsored by the Australian-New Zealand Women's Group.
Last month, the puppet troupe went to the far north of Thailand. In five days the group gave twelve performances in three districts of Chiang Rai Province. The group performed at schools for hill-tribe and Thai children and also visited the Development and Education Programme for Daughters and Communities Center, which provides a home and education for hill-tribe girls in Mae Sai district.
Art activity against drugs
Some members of the slum children's art group and their art teacher, Ms. Chatchada, last month took part in a one day art against drugs event at a Bangkok shopping centre. Children out shopping could drop by the DPF centre and paint on the topic of drugs. The event received media coverage with several interviews being carried out by television crews.
Bikes for New Life Projects
A consignment of one hundred used bicycles recently arrived at the Duang Prateep Foundation from Toyonaka in Japan. The bikes have been distributed to the New Life Projects at Chumphon and Kanchanaburi, where they are proving useful for the youngsters and staff to get round the large plots of land.
The photo shows youngsters at the Kanchanaburi New Life Project with their new bikes.
American students look at fire control
Over seven weeks in January and February four students from Worcester Polytechnic Institute of Massachusetts, USA were working at the Duang Prateep Foundation on a project to look at the electrical hazards associated with fires in Klong Toey Slum.
Fires are known to be a too frequent hazard of slum life. In recent years the improved fire fighting service available at the Duang Prateep Foundation and among volunteer groups in the communities have prevented the spread of several serious fires. However, the fire fighters are hindered by the fact that, although they are often quickly at the scene of blazes, they cannot turn their hoses on until the electrical system is switched-off.
The Duang Prateep Foundation invited the American students to investigate the feasibility of introducing a local electrical cut-off system, which would make it possible for community representatives or fire fighters to quickly switch off the power supply in the event of a fire. The Americans decided that the lack of funds available and the disorganised wiring in the slum made a local cut-off system unrealistic. Other options were considered and, after interviews with local fire-fighters and electricity authorities, improved channels of communication between the two were recommended. The American students also prepared a brochure on fire safety and initiated an educational fire-fighter demonstration at the Duang Prateep Kindergarten.
Signing ceremony at Japanese Embassy
Last month DPF Secretary General Prateep Ungsongtham Hata attended a signing ceremony at the Japanese Embassy for a contract in respect of a grant towards the New Life Project for Boys at Chumphon. The contract was also signed by HE Mr. Atsushi Tokinoya , the Japanese Ambassador to Thailand.
The grant will be used for the construction of a new dormitory and the renovation of existing buildings. The project presently has a long waiting list of youngsters wanting to go to the project. The new dormitory will make it possible to increase the numbers at the project beyond the present maximum of one hundred.
Prateep attends ASEAN-Japan NGO meet
Last month Duang Prateep Foundation Secretary General, Prateep Ungsongtham Hata attended an ASEAN-Japan NGO Regional Conference on Deprived Children, which took place in Jakarta, Indonesia. Prateep used her experience as both an NGO worker and a senator to speak on legislation and policy making to help deprived children.
News from Thailand
Klong Toey slum to face daily anti-drugs raids and possible urine tests
Inspired by Her Royal Highness Princess Ubolratana's recent visit to Klong Toey Slum, the police have announced that they will raid the area daily to cleanse the area of drugs. The police claim that more than half the people living in the community are involved in drugs. The police announced that in January they arrested 37 major suspected drugs dealers and 402 small-time dealers.
Police have also recommended compulsory urine testing for Klong Toey Slum dwellers, saying it would be a major step forward in fighting the drug problem in the area. DPF Secretary General Prateep Ungsongtham Hata said that mandatory measures would not work in dealing with drugs problems.
"What is needed is community empowerment to enable communities to fight drugs," she said.
She agreed it would be very difficult to fight drugs in Klong Toey because of its size and location, which worked in favour of drug traders.
She said community members who have been involved in anti-drug campaigns needed "support from the outside world".
"They want police officers who would take their concern much more seriously," she said.
"They also want police to arrest big-time traders, instead of focussing on petty ones," she added. "But most of the time they have been let down."
Princess to chair drug research study
Her Royal Highness Princess Ubolratana will be an honorary chair-person for a Thai-US research programme on treatment of methamphetamine dependence, due to start in Thailand next year.
The project will be sponsored by the US National Institute of Drug Abuse (Nida), and headed by Dr Walter Ling, director of the UCLA integrated substance abuse programme. The joint project, called Behavioural Trial for the Treatment of Methamphetamine Dependence, will be carried out at four clinical research sites.
About 500 speed users of both sexes will be recruited for the trial. They will join a 90-minute behavioural therapy group about three times a week for 16 weeks. Assessments of the trial will be done on a few major aspects, including safety, withdrawal symptoms, and treatment results. The research will focus on characteristics, symptoms, duration and persistence of psychoses in chronic methamphetamine addicts. The research also aims to better categorise methamphetamine withdrawal symptoms and study patients' responses to behavioural therapy.
Drug convicts to be sent to army bases
About 2,700 drug convicts are to be transferred to army bases to ease the problem of overcrowding in prisons. A previous group of 2,591 prison inmates were sent to army bases in October for occupational training and rehabilitation.
Police will also push for a new law to separate young offenders charged with petty crimes from those charged with serious offences, to ease overcrowding in juvenile detention centres. Overcrowded detention centres and harsh punishments have been blamed for a recent spate of unrest and breakouts at juvenile detention centres.
Reformed addicts forced back into dealing
The army chief last month claimed that corrupt police are forcing rehabilitated addicts back into the drug trade. Some of the addicts who went through the army's rehabilitation programme had complained to the army that they were forced by some local police to push drugs again after returning to their hometowns. They were threatened with arrest if they refused, said the army commander-in-chief
Budget to treat more Aids patients
The Public Health Ministry will add 250 million baht to its budget to treat more Aids sufferers with anti-retroviral drugs under the 30-baht medical care scheme. The scheme would cover another 6,000 sufferers this year.
The direction of the National Plan for HIV/Aids Prevention and Solution (2002-2006), will focus more on teenagers both in and out of the educational system. The national Aids plan also highlighted other susceptible groups such as drug addicts, sex workers, migrant workers, fishermen, industrial workers, pregnant women, and orphans born to HIV-positive mothers. The Public Health Minister said the ministry's Aids prevention programme yielded good results so far with the infection rate decreasing from over 140,000 people a year between 1989-1992 to 23,000 in 2001.
Data from a Johns Hopkins University team that has been tracking Aids in Thailand shows worrying increases in the incidence of new HIV/Aids cases from heroin abusers. The data comes from an on-going study among army recruits during the 1990s. Cases of sexually transmitted HIV fell from 11% of recruits over the period of 1991-93 to 2% in 1998. At the same time, use of injected drugs rose from 1% of the youths to 4%. One quarter of all HIV/Aids victims were users or abusers of injection drugs, generally meaning heroin. The American researchers suggest the successful Thai fight against Aids has focussed too strongly on the single aspect of sexual transmission. Research indicates that drug-injectors are badly misinformed or uninformed of the danger they pose to themselves and others.
Government launches "Year of Building Health" project
Last month the government launched the "Year of Building Health" project, which it hopes will encourage people to keep themselves healthy, and save the government about Bt100 billion a year in the process. The Public Health Minister said it made more sense to focus on prevention than cure and called on the public to participate in the health project. Taking steps to prevent disease would reduce the incidence of illness and lower medical costs.
Healthy city evaluation
Thailand is drawing up a comprehensive set of indicators for healthy cities. The indicators are being developed for Bangkok and four other cities. They will serve as a tool for evaluating city development under the Ninth National Development Plan, which took effect last year. Local people will be able to use the indicators to evaluate whether their cities or communities are healthy places in which to live.