Winning hearts and minds

HILL TRIBES: A businessman is determined to give the Karen hill people in northern Thailand some tools to cope with modern change

Story and pictures by JAMES EAST

There is a battle going on for the hearts and minds of Thailand's tribal groups, according to "freelance missionary" and businessman Ralf Oberg.

The government, traders in prostitutes, loan sharks and the lure of advertising are all influencing, and usually for the worse, villagers living in the remotest of communities.

The White Karen living near Chiang Mai's Doi Inthanon National Park, whose homes are accessible by only the poorest of roads, and sometimes not at all in the wet season, have the same desire for conveniences and luxuries that most Bangkok citizens have - a motorbike to get to other distant villages, a TV to watch the latest Manchester United game, or a cassette player on which to hear the Spice Girls.

There's nothing wrong in wanting these things but paying for them is another matter since the Karen are basically subsistence farmers. It might mean having to send a family member to Bangkok, or doing labouring work for outsiders who can exploit the Karens' low position, and their lack of financial and political power.

That's where Ralf Oberg, 30, comes in.

A Christian, his aim is to work with Thailand's Christian Karen to give them an opportunity to make the right decisions as the 20th century forces itself upon their traditional lifestyles. He believes having a good education is key to helping them chart their own futures.

He is helping to start and fund day care centres for pre-school children, sponsor poor Karen teenagers' higher education and provide hostels for those who would otherwise live too far from schools to attend.

Ralf believes many people either have a rather romantic idea about the hill tribes and believe their way of life must be preserved at all costs, or look down on them as hillbillies - only valuable as a tourist attraction.

"Many people have no idea what is happening with the hill tribes. If we were to take some townies, put them in a village and cut them off from the outside world, take away their electricity and water, how would they feel? Hill tribe people want to be a part of the 20th century... Things will be very different in the mountains in 10 years and some of the Karen know it."

Ralf says what he wants to do is give the Karen the opportunity to make educated decisions about how they should face the challenges of the future, rather than having them imposed upon them.

"If they want to protect their culture, fine. If they want to go to the big city, that's OK. It's their choice, but they mustn't be driven into things," he says.

A trip into the mountains with Ralf in a four-wheel drive vehicle shows just how much he is and has been involved in. As he careers between gashes and muddy pools on the road between Mae Chaem and Mae Sa, about 150 km from Chiang Mai, he points out various projects.

In Mae Chaem there is a hostel with around 30 children which he helped set up four years ago. It is now being sponsored and overseen by a Singaporean organisation which took it on board about 18 months ago. Ralf's aim is usually to start something up and then hand it on to a local church, the village or a Christian organisation.

Earlier in the day, in Chiang Mai, he met with Boonong, 21, who until recently lived at the hostel and attended high school in the town. He is now training to be a teacher at Chiang Mai Teachers' College and is one of a number being sponsored by Ralf. Without the hostel he would not have been able to get a good education.

Half an hour up the road is Mae Na Chorn, a small village, on the outskirts of which is the simple headquarters of Ralf's work which goes by the name of Thai Care. Here he bought a small plot of land from a local Karen friend and had five split bamboo and leaf roof buildings erected.

Here five teenage boys: Somsak, 17, Chovapo, 16, Ratapa, 16, Siti, 16, and Preecha, 15, live, since their homes are 25-30 km away from the village high school. They live under the care of former Bible college student and Karen, Thanongsak, 27, and his wife. The teenagers cook their own meals on open fires, keep the huts tidy, feed the two pigs and tend some plots. In the evening they might go and watch a battery-powered TV in the village, play football, swim or sing songs by candlelight.

On leaving school they hope to become mechanics, a teacher, an electrician and a postman. Later this month they will be joined by another five children.

Somsak says: "I came here because I want to study so that I do not have to work hard in the fields and so that I can go forward in the future."

They will spend three years at the centre while attending school and may go on to be sponsored through further education.

As for the hostel centre, Ralf has big dreams. He would like to buy more fields so that he can then rent them out to the rice farmers.

"I would then be entitled to receive rice from them and the hostel could become self-supporting." He wants to build a two-storey hostel to accommodate more children, boys as well as girls, is looking into growing tea, providing agricultural training and may even set up place where tourists can stop overnight. Another ambition is to have a home for the homeless, the handicapped and for Aids victims on the same site.

Of course, such pioneering work is not without its frustrations and disappointments. A previous hostel manager stole a hostel motorbike and disappeared. Attempts to set up buffalo and pig banks failed after he was ripped off.

Ralf says: "Getting cheated by the people who you thought were your friends is part of life. You have to be prepared for it. If I was expecting a thank-you I would be a bitter person by now, so if things work out I consider it a bonus."

He says an obstacle to his work has been the past efforts of some foreign missionaries and other NGOs which left some Karen confused. To the Karen, missionaries appeared to be well paid since they always seemed to have enough money to have their children treated in hospital if they fell ill and could afford to fly home. This now means some Karen believe that teaming up with outside Christian organisations means a passport to a better life.

Ralf hopes that he is getting the mix of spiritual and physical help about right, although he accepts that some villagers are under the mistaken impression that he is a millionaire even though all his spare cash goes into the projects.

Another half hour along the winding road from Mae Na Chorn is the first of Ralf's four day-care centres, based in Mae Hoi. The others are in the villages of Palaphi, Someb Ruam and Hui Pah, which are often inaccessible by road during the rainy season. Each centre has two teachers and together they care for around 150 two to five-year-olds. Another centre in the 500-strong community of Mae Sa was passed on to a Singaporean mission organisation.

The aim of the centres is to prepare youngsters for Thai primary school. Without them the Karen-speaking children often fall behind when they attend Thai-speaking schools because they cannot speak the language.

Drop in on the Mae Hoi day care centre and you will find 30 or so lively youngsters and Karen teachers Miriam, 16, and Cheeraporn, 23, hard at work. The school was built for around 35,000 baht five years ago and sits alongside the village church. Ralf funds not only the teachers' wages but also the materials. Children learn to read and write Thai, listen to some Bible stories, play games and learn handicrafts.

"Some people here said they wanted a day care centre so I provided the teachers, who come from the village," says Ralf. "A local committee of village supervisors oversees the project."

On the centre's walls are alphabet posters, pictures the children have made, photos of the Royal Family and a line of multi-coloured toothbrushes.

The children might look scruffy but they have gleaming teeth and they certainly seem to have a good time.

At the beginning of October, Ralf took Swiss volunteer and teacher Paula Marquis, 27, out to the mountains for the start of her nine-month stint. She joins fellow volunteer and a very mosquito-bitten Filipino, Apple Poja, 24, in overseeing the work of the day centres and in suggesting improvements. It will be their job to listen to the Karen and relate their needs to Ralf.

To understand Ralf's passion for the Karen and for education one has to go back 11 years to when he first arrived in Thailand as a 19-year-old, with a pastor friend. They moved in to live in Ban Kapi slum and pretty soon started setting up a day care centre there. He lived in the slum for seven years and met his Thai wife of three years, Wanida, while working there. It was while there that he met a Karen man who invited him to the mountains. That's when he saw the need and fell in love with the Karen.

Ralf left the slum and started teaching English to fund the growing Karen work out of his own pocket. Pretty soon the debts began to mount, eventually reaching 100,000 baht, and he knew he had to move into a more profitable line of business. Three and a half years ago Ralf set up his own Bangkok-based firm, Protech Transfer, which specialises in importing machinery for making jewelry.

The Karen work is growing and Ralf's approach to funding it is certainly different from the traditional missionary approach where churches or NGOs raise the money. The projects cost him 30-40,000 baht a month, with other extra expenses cropping up, such as when a new day centre needs building. His customers and friends also make donations.

So far Ralf estimates that some 300 children have been through the day care centres and 30 teenagers sponsored through higher education.

"It's easy to give 10,000 baht and have a good conscience, but I like to get involved and if the projects don't work I cancel them. There is no point in throwing good money after bad," he says.

Ralf, who attends Bangkok Evangelical Church in Sukhumvit Soi 10, likes to make sure his projects are accountable and so his work is overseen by the Bangkok-based umbrella organisation, the government-licensed NGO Concordia Foundation, which promotes welfare and education. The foundation also oversees a day care centre in Bang Na slum, a home for the children of women prisoners and other projects.

Bill Timmons, its executive director, said he believed Thai Care's work helped prevent poor Karen children being sucked into urban environments where they could fall prey to drugs and homelessness.

A pastor friend made an interesting observation about Ralf's approach after looking at the wall of a Karen home during a trip to the North.

"He told me that all the planks were even, apart from one knotted one that somehow fitted in," says Ralf. "He said he thought that I was a bit like that plank. I guess you could call me a freelance missionary," he says.

Anyone wishing to donate to Thai Care can contact Ralf Oberg on 942-1145, or Bill Timmons on 391-5671, or write to PO Box 954, Prakhanong 10110, Bangkok.

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