HDFF has over the past year trained over 1,000 participants from local communities in the three southern border provinces of Thailand in project management skills. After the training workshops, a call for proposals and sub-granting scheme has allowed 14 projects to be launched across the southern provinces. You can follow the latest updates here, the first one is focused on the idea of sufficient economy and building sustainable households.
Reducing expenses and generating income with the ‘sufficient economy model’
Section for fish farming on communal land
This project promotes the sufficient economy model within communities by focusing on the three core dimensions of this principle: societal, economic and cultural sufficiency. In the societal dimension, the community creates a common code of conduct that follows the Thai constitutional rights and holds support by the local participants. In this part of the project, workshops are provided on civil rights to all participants.
For cultural continuity, a community knowledge center will be set up as a base where the history and background of the local community and area will be presented. The project leaders hope that this will help pass on the rich cultural heritage of the area while gathering local knowledge and resources to preserve the local natural resources.
In order to promote sufficient economy, a number of interested household representatives in the community have been taught important skills that help improve sustainability. These trainings have included household accounting, agricultural skills and methods to maximize land usage in a way that respects nature. Living sustainably off the resources that are available is a first step to improving quality of life in these households. Participants have therefore also learnt more about how to farm poultry and maintain crops, as well as how to use their produce.
The project includes an important communal aspect, where the local community decided to transform unused land into sections for fish farming, a poultry farm and common crops that can be used by the entire community. Members of the local community here work together to maintain, harvest and use the produce, and they share profits from sales of the surplus at the local market.
Preparing soil for farming
Creating a “sufficient economy community” is the key objective of this project, which holds a vision of community members living in a sustainable way together.
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