Photo courtesy of MAG

By actively listening to community members, identifying issues of local importance, and devising solutions together with them, Sombat and MAG are creating educational programs that knock down the barriers between different parts of the community. In the process, they are helping redefine existing notions of both education and community.

MAG's Youth Network organizes a wide range of activities from Saturday computer, English and Thai lessons to large camps where complicated topics such as drugs, gender issues and sex education are addressed. Special projects also emphasize traditional crafts such as weaving and bamboo work that are prized by the outside world but thought old-fashioned by hill tribe youth.

The Youth Network aims to restore youths' pride in their tribal identity while giving them a support network and helping hand into adulthood in modern Thailand. Many hill tribe youth already show a faltering confidence (or even shame) in their tribal identity, abandoning traditional customs for those of lowland Thais or the West.

Photo by Naveen Kishore  A group of young volunteers from Singapore serves ice cream to help children celebrate the end of the school term

But integration into the lowland society is inevitable and the generation currently coming of age will be at the focus of that difficult transition. The Youth Network stresses building relationships with lowland Thai youths, including them in many activities with the goal of eliminating the misconceptions about cultural differences that have long clouded the relationship between Thais and highland ethnic minorities. At the same time, it creates an elected body that represents all hill tribe youths in Mae Yao, grooming future community leaders to take active roles in public service.

Making Connections via the Web

MAG continues to use a Web site to solicit donations of books and other resources, and to recruit volunteer teachers to help with education projects. Thus far, more than 1,500 volunteers have come to Chiang Rai to work on various MAG projects.

A typical placement lasts for about five days, in groups of up to 50 people. The volunteers live with villagers for the duration, trying to fit in to the tribal culture as much as possible. Projects involve teaching Thai (the second language of the hill tribes) and English, helping the farmers in the fields, and entertaining the children with games and songs.

Photo by Naveen Kishore Celebrating the end of school term

The rewards are numerous for both the volunteers and the children. Volunteers have a rare opportunity to learn about and form bonds within a minority culture that is misunderstood by the majority of lowland Thais and unknown to most of the world. They also realize new skills as they meet the challenges of a much more strenuous life and gain satisfaction from their interactions with the children.

The hill tribe children living in remote villages gain an opportunity to practice languge with native speakers, derive pride in their culture from the genuine interest of the volunteers, and can use the volunteer teachers as positive role models during their inevitable integration into Thai culture.

Regular volunteer teacher trips occur monthly (for more information or to volunteer for a longer period, contact kob@bannok.com).

Sombat: "The style of education I grew up with was too suffocating" Sombat Boonngamanong has long seen a gap between Thailand's educational system and the social needs of its people: "The style of education I grew up with was too suffocating," he said. Sombat is looking for ways to make education relevant to the challenges faced by hill tribes children. "The problem with Thai education is that it is simply not appropriate, especially in rural areas, because the materials come from Bangkok or foreign countries," he said. Photo by Naveen Kishore After his morning meeting, Sombat visits each hut or program space in the MAG compound, which photographer Naveen Kishore describes as a "wonderful farm/estate with fishing ponds and animals and little bridges over waterways." Here Sombat (left) visits a colleague in her hut to discuss plans and designs for selling tribe members' products through MAG's E-bannock commerce Web site. "Take English, for example. It is taught without anyone illustrating how it is useful. Or mathematics: kids are taught to count: '1 apple, 2 carrots', even though they have no concept of what these things are. "The economy also has far too large a role in education . . . people should be able to participate in and determine the content of their own education. What – and how – most students study is dictated by external rather than internal factors. "For example, there was a prime minister who decided that Thailand was going to be an industrialized country, so he put a lot of money into engineering programs. But no one asked students whether they wanted to be engineers, and a lot of them didn't. "If you don't want to learn something, you really can't learn it. What is worse, sometimes students don't even know what they want to study. I'm also concerned that the things they learn in university are not relevant to their reality."