Sometimes community development work takes thinking outside the box, things that you might never think would realistically work.  It takes boldness to envision for the future what is not a reality today.  One of Covenant World Relief’s partners working in Thailand among HIV/AIDS communities has such vision.  This partner is experimenting growing tilapia, which are a fresh water fish, in salt water to provide the communities a business for themselves.

Tilapia

Continue Reading »

Nan province in northern Thailand is one of the most marginalized and isolated areas in the country. The people who call this area home are often deprived of the most basic necessities in life, including a lack of hope for the future.

Since 2008, Covenant World Relief has partnered with the Sustainable Development Research Foundation (SDRF) to work on various community development projects throughout Thailand. Over the past four years, SDRF has been working in Nan province to enable local churches and communities to address their basic needs.

Recently, SDRF has developed “The Center for Sustainable Development” in Nan province, which is a center focused on enabling local at-risk communities in the area to experience the power of God in their daily lives.

One of the current projects at the center is the construction of a training building for local church and community leaders in the area. They will receive training about building sustainable communities. The implementation of several rural development projects are taking place as well, which include the domestication of wild pigs and the production of black chickens to benefit the surrounding communities.

Currently, both of the pig and chicken systems have been purchased and the pig system has already started in Nam Khe village. So far, 14 families in the community have been impacted by the pig project. Not only have they received pigs from the center, but they have been taught how to breed and raise the pigs in the village in a sustainable manner.

The pig project is continuing to flourish, and the chicken project is soon to follow. Community leaders have even begun to discuss what it would look like to implement the production of Tilapia as well.

Indeed, it is exciting to see the way that God is working to create a hopeful and entrepreneurial attitude within the communities in Nan province. We are excited to continue to receive updates on the way that the SDRF and the Center for Sustainable Development are working to meet the basic needs of every person in the Nan province.

“Westerners like to see quick results and big numbers.”  This was a comment made at our meeting in October by one of the CWR Commission members who is from India. It made us all more aware of the tendency in many community development projects to try and achieve big results with a lot of people in a short period of time.  Unfortunately these kinds of projects usually end up with minimal long term impact.

Ronna and I recently visited a Covenant World Relief project in a remote area in northern Thailand just a few kilometers from the Laos border.  It was refreshing to be up in the beautiful mountains enjoying the cooler weather.  However it was even more enjoyable to see how the work had expanded since I visited two years ago as Asia regional coordinator for Covenant World Mission.

Jim Gustafson and Bob Shim are Covenant missionaries working with a Covenant related Thai organization called The Sustainable Development Research Foundation. When it comes to transformational community development, Jim, Bob and the rest of SDRF staff understand the importance of depth over breadth – of thick versus thin – of a comprehensive versus a single issue approach.  After three years working with the Lua people group in the Baw Klua District, the SDRF has become deeply involved in education, community health, agriculture, leadership development, church development, and environmental issues.

In many ways SDRF is still just getting started in the Baw Klua District.  But because of their thick, comprehensive approach to community development, I am confident that genuine transformation of individuals, families, villages, and the SDRF itself will be evident for years to come.