New home, fresh hope
A model village initiative of HM the Queen helps teach new skills to widows whose families have been torn apart by violence in the restive far South
Many families in the far South have lost breadwinners to the insurgent violence. As widows struggled to cope with their grief and financial loss, a helping hand was extended to them.
Aware of their hardship, Her Majesty the Queen ordered the Royal Thai Aide-De-Camp Department and her secretariat on Sept 6, 2004, to develop a sufficiency village near Ban Rotan Batu village in tambon Kaluwor of Muang district, Narathiwat. An empty land plot covering 716 rai (about 1.14 square kilometres) was bought. Almost half the land is reserved for houses and the rest for farmland. There are 150 houses under the model sufficiency village and farmland project which welcomes members of the public and government officials affected by the insurgency and terror attacks in the three restive southern border provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala. Residents receive vocational training so they can make a living and improve their lives.
Col Phinij Intharaksa, an operations officer from a working group implementing development projects in Narathiwat for Her Majesty, said local authorities take good care of residents. About 50 rai or about 7% of the project site was turned into fish ponds. Villagers also raise fish in baskets in the Bang Nara river. Another 46 rai is set aside for raising goats, turkeys, ostriches and other kinds of poultry. Paddy fields occupy 59 rai, or about 8% of the land. Other crops are grown after the rice harvest. Cultivation of this part of land continues all year round.
____________________________________________________
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น