Network Development of Social Welfare Promotion Organizations: A Case of Chiang Mai Province, Thailand

Network Development of Social Welfare Promotion Organizations: A Case of Chiang Mai Province, Thailand Chiang Mai Province is located in mountainous area of northern part of Thailand. It comprises of 25 sub-counties covering about 1.6 million people. There are many NGOs scattered in those 25 sub-counties working on social activities, but lack of coordination and lack of availability of data base. Even in the same nature of social activity but in different sub-county, there were unequal social welfare promotions to those who have less opportunity to receive social welfares from government programs. Target groups were children and youth, women, disabled people, marginalized people, ageing people, and HIV infected people. Each sub-county has these target groups working within the sub-county independently. No network linkages among NGOs even in the same nature of social activity. From above difficulties, causes and mechanisms to remedy were needed to explore, so that policy of social welfare promotions can be implemented effectively by The Royal Thai Government. The Government provides Universal Health Coverage to all Thais in which those target groups are included. There were eight programs performed throughout 12 months period, each program contains activities. Each program was participated by 125 participants from those 25 sub-counties, five from each sub-county. Objectives of this study were: 1. To find out causes of lacking of coordination between social welfare organizations, 2. To find out mechanism to bridge the gap between organizations. Results from this study, from evaluation, indicated that activities performed within each program could bring attention and cohesiveness among organizations. Participations from those representatives of each sub-county were high among leaders of organizations. Establishment of data base for each target group were agreed to join together undoubtedly in providing information and even more in different nature of social welfare programs. Small NGOs in sub-counties grouped together by virtue of consciousness of serving others in community. This study could be performed in the same nature of target group or different in other provinces, since social welfare promotion programs are nationwide program for all. .