People-powered change in Thailand (and Bethnal Green)

[A final blog post, for now, from Thor who has been working with us the past couple of months, and will be sorely missed!]

After 2 months with SSE and a second tour abroad with the organisation, I am now leaving for a much-longed for break in Thailand. One cannot truly make an exit without some wise words though – and I wanted to share with you a story from the country to which I am travelling to.  

 

I think the most profound educational experience I have gained from SSE is one that (ironically) did not take place in Bethnal Green. Having travelled to a country like Thailand before, I have become acutely aware of the fact that social entrepreneurship and social enterprise is needed in most countries. In Thailand there is a desperate need for improved sanitation, basic health care facilities, and most profoundly, help for those who fall outside the system.

 

Recently a friend of mine made me aware of a particularly heart-breaking example. Two years past, a small group of students from my college in Minnesota spent a summer volunteering at the McKaen Rehabilitation Center, an entire village where men and women who either had leprosy or struggled with recovering from the many side effects of the disease, could live together and exist without the fear of being rejected. In Thailand many are ostracised from their homes when they get the disease, leaving them with no support to recover. McKaen had developed a large area for the village inhabitants, who supported themselves through farming and creating various products that were sold at the local market. The roads were paved, each patient lived comfortably in a small house, and people were allowed to be themselves, despite appearance or disability. However, as times got rough, McKaen began to struggle and had to move the centre (which was later turned into a retirement home) and was forced to ask many of the recovering patients to leave.

 

Where would you go, if your family, home and medical facility all rejected you? Most of the recovering McKaen patients (recovering most times mean learning to live with a severe disability for the rest of your life) had nowhere to go, so they decided to stick together and attempt to find a new home. After a local teacher donated some land, and two former McKaen employees joined them on a volunteer basis, the group decided to create a new home on their own. In a way they were all social entrepreneurs, but sadly not by their own choice. When my friend returned to help again she was shocked and moved to tears by the new conditions, only to find out that one of the patients had taken his own life in despair. Living together in a couple of small huts, the patients share a small plot of land and are not able to produce anything to support themselves.   Their caretakers volunteer, but without any support or training, are unable to improve the conditions for their severely disabled patients.

 

Despite these challenges, these men and women smiled, and they went about their day as best as possible. When a man can help build his home while missing half of his body, he must possess a true drive to change his own life. What him and his fellow co-habitants need is not money, but skills-training and help to facilitate ways of creating sustainable income. If only there was an initiative that could empower the former residents of the McKaen Foundation.       

 

In the last few weeks I have often pondered if I would want to aim for a career in the third sector. Having heard the story from Chiang Mai I am reminded more than ever that if there ever was potential for a movement to grow on a transnational basis, it is social enterprise. As obvious at it might seem for SSE staff, students, fellows and other affiliates that development should focus on people and skills-building, this is not necessarily yet a widespread notion.

In other words, I am very happy to have worked for an organisation that gets it.

Comments

[eileen edwards]

Hi, this is a very tragic tale. I live in Chiang Mai, and am the Executive Editor for the weekly Chiang Mai Mail English langauge newspaper. I would very much like to print your story in our paper as its something our readers would wish to know about. Would it be possible for you to give me your permission? I would credit your byline to the text, of course.

Please think about this and let me know by email on editor@chiangmai-mail.com

Best regards,

Eileen Edwards