Thailand

Cabbages, Condoms & Carbon Free


Mechai was born in Australia in 1941 to a Scottish mother and Thai father. He was educated at Geelong Grammar School, then moved to Thailand to work for the government where he has served as a Senator and a Minister of the Office of the Prime Minister twice. He has also served as Government Spokesman, Deputy Minister of Industry, Governor of the Provincial Waterworks Authority, and Chairman of Krung Thai Bank Public Company Ltd and the Telephone Organization of Thailand. He was appointed also as the Ambassador for UNAIDS in 1999.

At the age of 66, his unrelenting passion for his cause is still going strong. Upon meeting Mechai, there is a feeling of warmth about the man who cares for others and shows it through his work. It is very clear that he values his team, who through their outstanding effort, have won the PDA numerous awards. Many of the original staff that helped establish PDA over 30 years ago now hold senior positions, and their loyalty has been repaid through shared achievement. It is clear that they are not motivated by the awards, but by the fantastic work they do.

An Asian Hero

It is easy to see why Time magazine listed Mechai as an 'Asian Hero' alongside the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa. However, his intention is not to be a shining star - although the attraction he has created has seen him recently featured on Bloomberg and CNN's Talk Asia. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently announced that PDA had won the 2007 Gates Award for Global Health, in recognition of its pioneering work. PDA and its leaders have been recognised internationally by various organisations for their work in making lasting, systemic changes in Thailand and Southeast Asia. Two of their programmes have been recognized as Best Practices by UNAIDS, highlighting PDA's pioneering successes in family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention, and in the area of changing attitudes and behaviour and delivering services to the rural poor.

Lives Saved

Representatives of organisations from nearly 50 countries have visited Thailand to learn from PDA's successes through its international training arm. The World Bank acknowledged the PDA's key contribution in November 2005, which estimated that seven million lives had been saved from HIV/AIDS through the intensive public education and prevention programme designed and introduced to the public through PDA.

The PDA was founded as an NGO to complement the efforts of the Royal Thai Government in promoting family planning in Thailand. Its members recruited and trained residents of villages to provide information on family planning. This network covered more than one-third of the country, significantly contributing to the decrease in the annual population growth rate.

After addressing the immediate family planning needs, PDA expanded its activities to include primary health care, HIV/AIDS education and prevention, water resource development and sanitation, incomegeneration, environmental conservation, promotion of small-scale rural enterprise programmes, gender equality, youth development and democracy promotion. Its most recent activities have been the post-tsunami social, economic, and environmental rehabilitation of the villages affected by the tsunami, and the establishment of Carbon Banks with the PATT Foundation.

Partners Planners & Leaders

Today, PDA is the leading and most diversified NGO in Thailand, employing over 800 staff members and working with over 12,000 volunteers, with 18 regional development centres and branch offices located in 15 provinces in rural Thailand. PDA has pioneered sustainable grassroots endeavours, marked by extensive villager involvement not only as beneficiaries, but also as partners, planners, managers and leaders. The programmes are based on the belief that local people are best suited to be equal partners in shaping and sustaining their own development. Thirty-one years of PDA's involvement have created significant change in the following areas: - Health, AIDS and Family Planning - Income Generation and Poverty Reduction - Rural Micro-credit - Water and Environment - Youth as Agents of Change Today and Leaders of Tomorrow - Education and Nutrition - Corporate Social Responsibility - Emergency Relief Services - Asian Centre for Population and Community Development - NGO Sustainability

Innovative Funding

As a pioneer in social enterprise, it's not surprising that Mechai has his own views on charitable giving. Over three decades ago, he identified that the PDA would not be able to survive merely on grants. They had to innovate to provide funds; and that echoes in the work they do today and the funds they generate. Starting with an initial grant of $65,000 to set up the PDA, they established 18 companies to provide funds to their organisation through grass roots development. This, Mechai acknowledges, has been the key factor in their success - people in need helping themselves out of poverty and working to develop their own community. Two of the companies did not succeed; but rather than see this as a defeat, it was turned into a learning experience: the key message, work smarter, not harder! Their Cabbages & Condoms restaurant in Bangkok features 'free' condoms, and all profits are used by the PDA for its programmes. They have also launched a chain of hotels based around the same name and theme.

Carbon Free

It was Mechai's innovation that factored heavily in the PATT Foundation's Carbon Free Programme development, along with financial support from the XL Results Foundation. The partnership established a co-operative bank in each village that is funded based on the number of trees planted and kept alive through the mortality period. With the bank committee being 50 percent female, it tackles not only gender equality but helps to create

sustainability through microfinance and the low interest loans they offer for SME start-ups in the village. This factor helps to eradicate poverty; but at the same time, the trees are combating another world problem - reforestation and climate change.

Education for the Needy

Mechai has no plans to slow down - in fact, quite the contrary, he enjoys what he does so much that it's not work to him. When most are planning their next round of golf, Mechai is pondering how to raise funds to continue education into the middle years at one of their elementary schools in a rural area of northern Thailand. This school was set up to provide higher levels of education from the poor schooling that previously existed. It awards scholarships to the needy, and provides a chance for students to lift themselves out of poverty through education.The school has been so successful that its first students are now reaching secondary school stage, with no place nearby to continue their tutoring at the level required. The programme is a victim of its own success - but a nice problem to have, which PDA will surely solve.

An Opportunity is Afoot

A recent decision by a large sporting footwear manufacturer to relocate to China for more favourable economic conditions has left the PDA with another more significant problem. It has to find a way to fill the void for the company it set up that supported the footwear manufacture, but now has no orders. Over 3,000 people have been left floundering as the large multi-nationals chase profits to please shareholders. Thus, the PDA now has low-cost manufacturing facilities available with a workforce in place for any social entrepreneur to take advantage of.

Mechai believes that social enterprise will factor significantly in the pursuit to eradicate the world's dilemmas. Governments cannot do it alone, but he knows that NGOs cannot survive on handouts and the goodwill of volunteers; they have to function as businesses in an increasing and competitive market to continue the great work they do. They have to find ways to join together to achieve common goals rather than compete for dollars.

Social entrepreneurs looking for a partner in Asia that can operate in variety of industries need not look much further than the PDA to forge a strong partnership with.

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