IX - Training and Education: Committee of Women's Welfare Promotion, Hotline, and EMPOWER

Summary

In addition to the five larger selected groups described in previous chapters, there are several other small women's groups operating in Thailand based mostly in Bangkok. They contribute to women's issues in many significant ways. Instead of describing them all, we chose three relatively known and effective groups: the Committee on Women's Welfare Promotion (CWWP), EMPOWER and Hotline. These groups respectively pay attention to young village women by providing them vocational training, to bar girls by increasing their self-confidence through English and drama classes, and to women of all ages by counselling them mostly over the phone. The efforts of these groups are predominantly educational. They tackle the problems of different groups of women ranging from rural to urban, but differ in their ideology and in using different methods and forms of educational media.

Committee on Women's Welfare Promotion

The Committee on Women's Welfare Promotion is not an independent grass roots women's group, but a programme of a larger organization, the National Council of Social Welfare (NCSW). To co-ordinate social welfare activities among government and private organizations, NCSW was established in 1960 and was granted royal patronage in 1961. King Bhumipol donated one million baht in 1965 for the construction of the council's office building, appropriately named after his father, Prince Mahidol. The NCSW comprises a variety of sub-programmes focusing on social welfare and development. Women's issues are taken up by CWWP on the grounds of promoting women's welfare. Since its inception in 1971, CWWP has been active under the leadership of Khunying Dittakarn-Pakdi. It has stressed the development of rural women. It has over 30 members and four staff members.

History

Khunying Dittakarn-Pakdi was one of those few Thai women who went abroad for medical training in 1940. At the John Hopkins University she did two years of internship, and married soon afterwards in 1942. The next 20 years she followed her husband, who was as an ambassador, abroad.