Princess of excellency

NEWS Makers

Today, HRH Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana, the youngest daughter of HRH Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, will be among the batch of Chulalongkorn University graduates rehearsing for the commencement ceremony, which will take place on July 9.

She recently graduated with first honours from the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts in the field of Creative Arts.

With a top score of 3.93 GPA, she also earned a gold medal and a student distinction for the academic year 2008. While she was still a fashion design undergraduate, she became the youngest designer ever to showcase her work on the catwalk at Paris Fashion Week.

She also distinguished herself in the field of sports, having played on the national badminton team.

She is currently an intern at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as she prepares to further her studies in Paris soon.

The world is her oyster!

Social Entrepreneur of the Year

Congratulations are in order for MR Disnadda Diskul, secretary-general of the Mae Fah Luang Foundation, who was recently recognised by the Schwab Foundation as the Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2009 for the region of East Asia.

The Schwab Foundation was set up in 1998 by Klaus and Hilde Schwab, founders of the World Economic Forum, as a complementary foundation to promote entrepreneurial solutions and social commitment with a clear impact at the grassroots level.

The Schwab Foundation and the World Economic Forum work closely together with the selected Social Entrepreneurs that are funded to participate in the activities of the World Economic Forum, which is a global community of world leaders in business, government, academia and civil society, showing that the two poles of business and civil society can work together to improve the state of the world.

Selection of the social entrepreneur of the year is based upon three main criteria: Innovation, sustainability and direct social impact. On the foundation board are the likes of Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, former first lady of South Africa Zanele Mbeki and Grameen Bank Bangladesh managing director Muhammad Yunus.

MR Disnadda has been the driving force of the Mae Fah Luang Foundation and its offshoot, the Doi Tung Development Project, both of which were established by the late Princess Mother of Thailand to eradicate the opium trade and reforest the northern region of Thailand.

Since its inception in 1988, Doi Tung has successfully implemented the Sustainable Alternative Livelihood Development (Sald) approach, which "provides disenfranchised and poor communities with health services and truly sustainable economic alternatives, ultimately improving their quality of life, their access to educational opportunities and the environment".

Following its success in northern Thailand and the border areas with Burma, other countries including Burma, Indonesia and Afghanistan have looked to Doi Tung for assistance in introducing the Sald approach to their own internal problems, which Doi Tung has adapted to suit the needs and socio-cultural environment of each location. Yet all projects follow the same three-pronged pillars for integrated development: Health, livelihood development and education. This is no overnight remedy, and only after decades of hard work will the final goal be achieved - total community-owned and managed sustainable business units.

After all his success with the Doi Tung Development project, is he ready to retire? Hardly.

He has been successfully selling his latest project to the government, from the very top to the grassroots level officials. Called "The Road Towards Putting the Gold Leaf on the Back of the Buddha Image: Carrying on the Royal Initiative", this ambitious project comprises one million activities throughout the country.

"I was trying to imagine what would make HM the King happy. He has done so much for the country, and the least we can do is carry on what he has initiated. Do you know Thailand gets 700 billion cubic metres of rain a year, with the northeastern region getting 236 billion. Of that, only 2.7 percent gets collected. Why don't we create a monkey cheek project like His Majesty has initiated around Bangkok?

"Most of us are trying to prevent flooding around Bangkok. Why not look at the source of the river rather than the mouth of the river? We should try and reforest the watersheds of the Nan River, a tributary of the Chao Phraya River. The villagers of Amphoe Song Kwae, Nan province grow corn, but they suffer from insecticide poisoning. I also discovered that Nan province spends millions of baht a year buying eggs. So we will introduce poultry farming to the villagers, which will help them earn more money than growing corn, and reforest the corn fields instead. This will be part of the 80-by-100,000 rai reforestation project to mark HM the Queen's 80th birthday in 2012."

He is currently preparing a shopping list for corporate sponsorship. Everything will be based on the Doi Tung's integrated, people-centric development, and educational institutes have been invited to evaluate the Key Performance Indicators. He promises that for once, everything will be above the board. Dr Kasem Watanachai is the chairman of the project committee, while MR Disnadda himself is chairman of the executive committee, with Thanpuying Putrie Viravaidya as his deputy.

"The world has come full circle," he remarked. "It has been proven that the 'isms' - communism, socialism and most recently, capitalism - do not work. A whole new terminology is being coined; Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Social Entrepreneur (SE). I believe it's time to take a little less and give a little more."

1st Thai Refugee Ambassador

Actress Diana Jongjintanakarn has recently been appointed 1st Thai Refugee Ambassador for the US Committee for Refugee and Immigrants (USCRI). The appointment took place at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand (FCCT).

Her role will be to raise awareness of the plight of refugees in Thailand with the goal of ending refugee warehousing in Thailand.

Diana had no second thoughts when she was approached by USCRI a couple months ago. Though it will be a tough agenda, she will be following in the footsteps of one of the world's most glamourous film stars, Angelina Jolie, and said she was proud to take on this role.

"I hope to see the equal opportunity happens to the refugee children, especially in the part of accessibility to the Thai educational system. I do believe in the value of people, whoever they are, and wherever they come from," she said.

As the Thai Refugee Ambassador, Diana will help educate the public not only about the plight of refugees, but also about the perseverance and courage they show in overcoming all odds to rebuild their lives. In addition, Miss Diana will also help USCRI to inform Thai civil society about the ability of the refugees in Thailand can make the enormous contributions to their own societies and to their host countries if they are able to gain their basic rights and opportunity from their host countries.

One of the ways she is sharing her mission is through her USCRI (Thailand) websites at http://www.khonthaijaidee.org and http://www.uscrithailand.org.

Diana is not the first Thai personality to link up with USCRI. Previously, popular songs-for-life group, Carabao, wrote and performed an original song called, For Refugees, about the plight of 340,000 refugees who had been warehoused in Thai camps for decades, without the ability to work or move freely outside of the camps.

Diana has her work cut out for her, seeing Thailand's track record concerning refugees. Last year, USCRI ranked Thailand as one of the "10 Worst Countries for Refugees" in how they treated Burmese refugees as well as Hmong refugees from Laos, according to its website. Listed with Thailand are Bangladesh, China, Europe, India, Iraq, Kenya, Malaysia, Russia and Sudan.