The Mirror Art Group (MAG) helps hill tribes – relocated from the mountaintops to the foothills of northern Thailand – fight poverty, unemployment, lack of education, malnutrition, drug abuse, trafficking of women and children, loss of land rights, withholding of political rights and benefits, and erosion of their culture.
MAG’s innovative approach includes helping hill tribes harness the power of modern computer communications and broadcast technologies (MAG was the first Thai citizens’ organization to useInternet technology to address social needs) and create an education system that erases divisions in society by linking the interests of children, teachers, and parents so that everyone can participate in education.
Sombat Boongamanong, also known as “Nuling,” is the founder and visionary of MAG. At age 35, he is one of Thailand’s information technology leaders, without ever having finished the twelfth grade. The members of his high school’s student council were popularly elected, “but every year they had conflicts with the administrators, so the system was changed so that school administrators indirectly chose council members,” Sombat said. “I couldn’t accept this. I fought for representation by students and I didn’t finish school as a result of fighting for the issue.”
Tags: Anti-poverty strategies, Featured
