Thailand: "Rurals" Meet "Urbans"

United Nations ESCAP
HRD Section

Thailand: "Rurals" Meet "Urbans"

In Thailand, urban young law students are teaching young ‘rurals’ about their legal rights. By doing that they not only give a helping hand to rural youth, but also to themselves.

The Child Welfare Laws Project was initiated in 1986 by the Child Welfare Association of Thailand to disseminate information and improve existing laws to protect the rights and welfare of children. During its early years, the Project produced the Child Welfare Laws Handbook, and conducted seminars and workshops to disseminate relevant information. The initial target groups of the Project were adults, child welfare workers, and concerned officials of government agencies and NGOs.

In 1990, under the Project, the Association started the "Legal Literacy for Rural Children" initiative. The premise of the project was that child welfare laws could not become fully effective unless the children and youth themselves were made to understand those laws. The project was directed at rural youth, as they constituted the majority of the young population of Thailand and were more vulnerable to exploitation as compared to their urban counterparts.

The Young Farmers Groups was selected as the target group for the project. This organization, which had representation in all the villages of the country, comprised children and youth aged from 10 to 25 years. Of the total membership, 30 per cent were aged 10 to 14 years and 70 per cent were aged 15 to 25 years.

The Young Farmers Groups were already involved in community development work in their respective rural communities, with the support of the community leaders such as the village headmen, monks and teachers. It was estimated that there were about 6,000 groups with a total of 200,000 members when the project started. Selected leaders and members of the Young Farmers Groups were provided with training. During the three-year duration of the project, about 600 such individuals received training.

The Child Welfare Association of Thailand approached the Faculty of Law at Chulalongkorn University for collaboration in the implementation of this project. Students at the Faculty of Law were actively involved in the transfer of legal knowledge to less fortunate rural youth. In fact, the training evaluations indicated great benefit for the law students as well as for the young farmers. The project provided the young farmers with knowledge and understanding of child welfare and related laws applicable to everyday life.

The young farmers were also trained to disseminate this legal information in their own communities. The law students benefited from the opportunity to use their knowledge and transfer it to others. This was found to be an excellent form of apprenticeship, which resulted in practical skills enhancement. The concept of youth helping youth to improve rural communities and to bring about the self-development of each other created a close relationship and understanding between the two groups.

The Department of Agricultural Extension was a main partner in implementing the project together with the Faculty of Law at Chulalongkorn University. Its involvement was important for the dissemination of information, and for ensuring the sustainability of the project through the incorporation of certain activities into the regular operations of the Department, including radio programmes for young farmers, training and workshops for young farmer leaders, and community services by Young Farmers Groups.

In the third year of the project, efforts were made to mainstream legal literacy initiatives. The National Farm Youth Development Plan for 1992-1996, which was developed, included the provision of legal literacy training through the Young Farmers Groups as a strategy to develop agricultural community leaders. Since the official commitment of the Government made it possible to institutionalize these legal training activities, specific strategies were developed and implemented under the project.

The experimental activities included, among other things, mobilization of local Agricultural Extension Agents and Young Farmers Groups’ advisors to participate in the training activities, the production of radio programmes and the incorporation of legal literacy components in events for young farmers at the local, provincial, regional and national levels through involving law students and trained young farmers.

At the community level, 40 trained and highly motivated farmers, who possessed sufficient legal knowledge to conduct local legal literacy activities, became the legal focal points. Recognition of the role of these legal focal points was accorded by other agencies. For example, Pollwatch, the authorized election monitoring group, appointed them as election watchdogs during the general election in March 1992. The focal points also organized pro-democracy activities in their own villages prior to the election, an experience which provided them with skills in project planning and management with local participation.

The project was found to be sustainable for two main reasons. The first was the success in institutionalizing the project activities, which were integrated into the work of the Department of Agricultural Extension. The second was the desire of the law students and young farmers to continue their informal exchanges. Since the law students were readily accessible to the young farmers, the peer exchange did not suffer from the “barriers” which often occur between service providers and recipients in technical assistance projects. The contact between the participating urban and rural youth has continued beyond the project period and has been a major factor in the successful establishment of cooperative ties between the two groups.

Taken from the publication: “Review of the Youth Situation, Policies and Programmes in Asia and the Pacific”, ESCAP, 1997