Zhang Zhengyang / self-sufficient economy of making good use of Local plants: Wantou Community Learning Centre, Thailand

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When leaving from the Sanpan Riverside Hotel (Sampran Riverside) to the "Wantou Community Learning Center" (Baan Hua-Aow Learning Centre), Thai friends with the same company raised the volume and took the initiative to remind, "this is the place that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi visited!" After returning to Taiwan to search for information, it was found that in 2016, Myanmar's Senior Minister and Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi, accompanied by the wife of the Thai Prime Minister, visited the Wantou Community Learning Center, which was widely reported in the Thai media at that time.

Sanpan Riverside Hotel used to be a large-scale resort in Bangkok. when the business situation was gradually declining and the previous generation of operators were evaluating whether to close down business, the third generation of young operators took over and decided to assume new social responsibility and play the role of bridge and support for the organic industry. on the one hand, they set up Holiday Soviet Organic Farmers' Market (Sook Jai Market) in the hotel park. On the one hand, restaurants are allowed to use organic ingredients. At present, 80% of the ingredients come from organic agriculture, and the organic produce in Wantou Village is one of its sources of supply, so after visiting the Sanpan Riverside Hotel, we came to Wantou Village in Nakhon Pathom.

Be organic, use the power of a community

At the same time when we arrived at Wantou Village, the members of the center cut up coconuts at the entrance, allowing us visiting delegation members from Asian countries to enter the community learning center one by one. Compared with the learning center in Taiwan, which is also based on agricultural production, there is a familiar smell of agriculture in the space here, but it is also special because of differences in national conditions and other factors.

The first thing that comes into view is the triple signboard of the learning centre, from top to bottom are the self-sufficient Economic Community practice Program (The community enforcement project under the sufficiency economy philosophy), the Wan Tau Community Learning Centre (Baan Hua-aow learning centre), and the Xiang Village Organic Union (Xiang Village is an area of the Wan Tau community) (Baan Chang organic group). The names of the three signboards cleverly and completely explain the rich connotation of the objects we visit from the three aspects of spirit, space and organization.

Water and land areas around the Wan Tau Community Learning Centre (Photo / Zhang Zhengyang)

(this article thanks Chen Zhanghan and Orakarn Suttiwerawat for their assistance in Thai translation. )

The original article was published in the monthly Green Proposition, May 2018, No. 174

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