Sawadee Kha from Thailand

Two months are already gone since my arrival in Thailand. What I can say so far is that I found a welcoming environment, the people are very kind and helpful. 

I live in La-ngu, in the province of Satun, in the south of the country near the border with Malaysia. 

Here I cooperate with a local NGO, the Satun Research Centre, in particular I am involved in activities for youth empowerment, community development and capacity building.

I found a very dynamic reality right away and the youth, despite the adolescent age usually doesn’t help, are very participatory. The team I work with is fairly organized, they have developed a system of youth empowerment through key people for each youth group, generally one youth leader and one or more mentor per group. At the moment we work with 14 groups of youth, on a project-based learning approach. Practically it means that, together with their mentors, we support the youth to carry out projects for the development of the communities where they live. 

We also provide training to the mentors to clarify the role that they should cover for the youth and to give them practical tools in the research-based learning approach.

Satun Youth Active Citizens Leaders

So far so good, and I could tell you that it would be like that if it is not for huge barrier: the language. 

In fact, in the team I work with only one person speaks English and even the youth cannot express themselves in any other way than Thai. 

I knew about this language barrier before leaving, but as I usually do, I create expectations in my minds that were mathematically disregarded. This time I had promised myself to leave free from any prejudice, but evidently my brain unconsciously developed ideas and after two months I have to admit that I didn't expect such a complicated situation.

You realize how our world is linked to verbal communication only when you have no longer the chance to use it. Adding fuel to the fire, there is the fact that I am the first international volunteer that they host and I am alone.

Meeting one of the 14 youth group

In these two months I have mainly observed their way of working, which I find very innovative and interesting. 

However, despite all the difficulties something starts to move also for me. This month they gave me the opportunity to organize, together with two EUAVs deployed in another local association in the area, a training for the youth mentors entitled "Mentor mindset: practical tools for mentoring on research and beyond." Feeling active in organizing this training after almost two months of observation was inspiring. 

That should be a starting point, in the last weeks we tried to define better my role and starting from now I have to prepare a communication strategy for the Satun Youth Active Citizen and plan some trainings for the youth according to their needs.

Meeting with Terje from Adice and local team to define my role

At the moment I still feel a little bit confused and the biggest problem is that I don’t feel really helpful, I would like to do more, I would like to interact with more people but the language blocks me. I must say that they involve me in every activity they do, but unfortunately again due to the language I can have a direct and proper exchange only with one person and this does not give me a full view of the context.

Nevertheless, I try to stay positive and I hope to soon find my place here in order to give a concrete contribution. Meanwhile, I’m trying to learn a little bit of Thai, but one year I don't think it's enough to reach a good level .

Let’s see how things will develop in the next months, most important is to start, try and see if it works!

Taphe Youth group and Satun NGOs Forum