Thanat Pathumdaeng,
president of the Mother of Land Fund for Chonburi, presides over the
opening of a training session to leverage the Mother of the Land Fund to
stamp out drugs at the local level.
Urasin Khantaraphan
The Kophai Community is exporting its award-winning
drug-prevention program to other Pattaya neighborhoods.
Thanat Pathumdaeng, president of the Mother of Land fund and the Mother
of Land committee for Chonburi, opened a training session for the
Nongtabae, Sai, Ban Nernfai and 5 Thunwa communities July 25, showing
them how to leverage the Mother of the Land Fund to stamp out drugs at
the local level.
The Kophai group was honored by the Mother of Land Fund in 2009 for its
strategies in building a stronger community and was named one of
Thailand’s model communities. In June last year, the community was named
a learning center for other communities, one of eight “empowerment”
centers in Chonburi.
Kophai’s success was built upon action by a 25-member board. Each member
was made responsible for four families in keeping drugs out of the
neighborhood.
In March, the Office of Narcotics Control Board said it wanted Kophai to
begin networking with other communities to get them to implement a
similar system. The latest four groups bring the total of communities
following the Kophai model in Pattaya to 10.
