Livelihood Improvement Project for Highlanders

Project Number: 22-0510-04

Project Period: 2006-2010

Project Holder: Heifer International Thailand
Since 1974, Heifer Thailand has been working to end hunger and poverty in Thailand through the gift of livestock and training.  To date, Heifer Thailand has assisted over 20,000 families in more than 1,600 villages in Thailand, Myanmar and Laos to become self-reliant.  Families have been "Passing on the Gifts" through sharing animals’ offspring or repaying loans to other needy families.
Since the inception, Heifer Thailand began focusing on tribal groups. The major problems of hill tribes are language and cultural barriers and lack of identity cards, which lead to the inaccessible of education, financial sources, healthcares, and so on. 

At the very beginning, Heifer Thailand implemented livestock activities with project partners. Later on, direct implementation of projects was initiated in needy communities where there was no organization to provide assistance for food and income generation. In 1998, Heifer Thailand recruited a local tribal farmer as a part-time staff in Chiang Dao District, Chiang Mai to help conduct and monitor projects. As local people share a similar background and can communicate in the same language with the villagers, they can respond directly to the problems.

Since 1998, hundreds of successful cattle, water buffalo, fish, goat, sheep, honeybee, swine, poultry, elephant, biogas, kitchen garden and water monitoring projects have been managed by eight local representatives, or so called ‘Village Extension Workers”. The target areas have been divided into eight zones in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Mae Hong Son, Tak, and Nan provinces, in northern Thailand. About 3,000 families in 92 villages have been assisted.

Project partners implement sub-projects:

At present, village extension workers have built up their capacity in technical knowledge and management skills. In order to achieve sustainability and increase the project management capability, Heifer Thailand encourages village extension workers together with their local groups to develop themselves as intermediate project partners, which include:

1. Sharing In New Life Enrichment Project (SHINE Project)
2. Livestock and Environmental Enhancement (LEE Project)
3. Sustainable Agriculture Integrated With Livelihood Project (SAIL Project)
4. Community Livelihood Improvement of Namlang Watershed (CLIN Project)
5. Capacity Improvement of Tribal Community in Namfang Basin (CITC Project)
6. Rural Community Development Project (RCDP Project)
7. Upland Community Development Project (UCDP Project)

These organizations will be registered as local foundations and Heifer Thailand will be a mentor in the registration process. The purpose is to empower the grassroots groups through a participatory approach.

Besides, other highland intermediate project partners will be also included to improve the livelihood of hill tribes. 

1. Karen Baptist Convention (KBC)
2. Thailand Lahu Baptist Convention (TLBC)
3. Nakornsawan Diocese Social Action Center (DiSAC)
4. Tribal Welfare and Development Center
5. Akha Kinship and Holistic Alternatives Foundation (AKHA Foundation)

Project Profile:

In northern Thailand, hill tribes are the poorest groups due to lack of resources. This project will provide 1,200 tribal families in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Nan, Mae Hong Son, and Tak provinces with 545 cows, 170 water buffalos, 1,950 pigs, 300 rabbits, 50 goats, 1,870 poultry, 300,000 fingerlings, 43,000 frogs, 44,000 tree seedlings, 10,000 kilograms of crop seeds, 60 biogas units, 90 kitchen gardens, and other agricultural supplies such as fertilizers, animal feeds, corn grinders, rice mills, etc. Appropriate training will be provided and saving groups will be formed. By 2010, the project families will have sustainable food and income. The highland communities will achieve self-reliance and practice environmentally-sound activities. Heifer Thailand will work with eight grassroots project partners to implement this project.

Local Conditions:

In the northern hills of Thailand there are about 1.3 million tribal people struggling with basic needs. The average monthly income is US$23-25. Almost half of the hill tribes do not have Thai citizenship. Without citizenship, they cannot access the governmental services, cannot vote, cannot have higher education, cannot travel to other provinces, cannot find jobs, etc. The tribal people farm and raise livestock for self-consumption. Commercialization has brought economic, social, and environmental changes in their lives. They have to adapt to a new way of life and face the following problems. 

In-debt crisis:  As agriculture is the primary way of making a living, the tribal people need to seek out the financial sources to rent the land and buy agricultural inputs such as seeds, seedling, fertilizers, and pesticides. Having no identity cards and no equity, they cannot apply for loans from banks or any government financial institutes and cannot attain the legal land right.  Borrowing money from other loan sources, they have been charged with extremely high interest rate about 5%-20% per month.

Poor health conditions: In highland areas, children are faced with malnutrition since protein and other nutrient sources are scarce in remote areas. Moreover, many villages do not have safe and clean water system.  This contributes to unsanitary conditions and exacerbates the spread of disease.

Environment depletion: As government limits the cultivation areas and mono-cropping becomes more popular, chemical fertilizers are heavily used to maximize the production and which deteriorates the soil quality and contaminates the watershed. This also affects human and animal health. In addition, increasing population leads to the expansion of cultivated areas and deforestation. In some places, farmers still follow the practice of shifting cultivation. The invasion of forestry areas is inevitable, causing forest depletion and conflicts between government officers and local people.

Lack of technical skills: As hill tribes live in remote areas, and their language and culture are unique, the support from GOs and NGOs is scarcely provided especially on agriculture production.

Migration: Some families migrate to the cities because they cannot make a living from agriculture, which now requires a high investment. For the youth, they choose to stay in the cities as farming is a hard-working job and they have no farming experience. Due to their poor education, the tribal people work as laborers in shops, restaurants and factories and earn low wages. There are also problems of drug abuse, prostitution, and HIV/AIDS problems.

Opportunities for Assistance:

Heifer Thailand together with grassroots partners will support the tribal families to achieve self-sufficiency and sustainability. The families will share their resources and experience among the group members. This will empower the groups and strengthen their groups’ values.

Project Goal:

Participating communities achieve self-reliance, sustainability, and holistic development by 2010.

Objectives

• To increse income by 30% through animal-based holistic development.
• To enhance capacity in organization and project management effectively and efficiently.
• To adopt agro-ecology techniques.

 Passing on the Gifts:

In some communities, for animals, such as cattle and buffalo, participating families will pass on the second offspring and original animal to the project, after the third offspring is weaned.  Alternatively, the families may pass on the original animal to the group after the first offspring is weaned.  The family will keep the offspring.          

Some families will receive micro-credit loans to purchase animals, seeds, and other agricultural supplies. They will pass on their loans with a modest interest rate determined by the group or local market.  Selected model farmers will develop their farms as demonstration farms to pass on their knowledge and skills to other farmers.

Funding source: Heifer Project International