Questions/Answers

Previously, Bansuan Town Municipality organized projects about the well-being of disabled persons including sending its teams to have a home visit and providing medical services to those with disabilities. However, the data gathered from observations and experiences of Bansuan Town Municipality officers who were responsible for the tasks proved that those projects were not accomplished and there still was a huge gap between disabled and non-disabled people. To clarify, many of disabled persons felt uncomfortable to attend social activities and were left out from the society due to their conditions. Moreover, they did not trust the government staffs, tried to seek for their own ways and did not follow the instructions from the municipality officers. This challenged the municipality to find the right solution for the serious problems. Therefore, Bansuan Town Municipality invited the disabled club, which was established in 2012, and other organizations to join together in solving the problem. The disabled club proposed the idea that they could be the leading team in home visits and be a connector between the disabled persons in the community the government staffs because they believed that they could understand and emphasize those with disabilities. So, the project “Friendship Therapy” was established with the purposes that to provide medical services to all persons with disabilities, empower them to live with self-esteem and encourage them to attend more social activities.

This project is congruent with Category 2, Promoting Integrated Mechanisms for Sustainable Development. The process of improving the quality of life and well-being of persons with disabilities involved stakeholders including both public and private organizations and also the people. During the process, the municipality played a key role in setting up the process, supporting facilities and providing knowledge and skill training to develop the teams so that it would be more effective and sustainable to access and help every disabled person in the community.

Friendship Therapy project supported Indicator 3.4 of Goal 3 of Sustainable Development Goals, which aims to promote mental health well-being of the disabled in every step of life. Successfully, as we had targeted, the project could reduce the number of persons with disabilities who had depression and tended to commit suicide, and increased the number of them who got a proper job and earn money him/herself.

Bansuan Town Municipality set a sustainable process driven by multiple organizations. Starting from the disabled club, they were encouraged from the municipality to be the leading team to support other disabled persons. Then, they sent the information to the Empowerment of Person with Disabilities Center, which was a joint of public organizations, to analyze and develop an ID plan for each of those in need. In terms of economy, the fund was considerably received from private sectors. Those companies were willing to contribute their money to the project and employ the disabled to work with them because of tax reduction.

This project had significantly increased effectiveness in government administration. Firstly, it collaborated all involved partners in solving the problem so that task redundancy had been cut and the information of the disabled had been gained insight-fully. Secondly, the project decreased the budget of the government because of the fund from the cooperation between public and private organizations. For this reason, the project could be able to spend the money on the quality of services provided to the disabled in the community. They could get proper medical treatments, learn some essential skills, and live with pride. Lastly, the project also supported to the 20-Year National Strategic Plan of Thailand and the National Act of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities which emphasized on the well-being and the quality of life of the disabled.

As Friendship Therapy project is based upon the idea of promoting human equality and opposing discrimination to underprivileged people, the project attempted to help support the handicapped in the community without any conditions. For this reason, the project provided its service with no gender discrimination in order to empower and encourage all disabled people to have more self-esteem, and importantly, to ensure that they can equally access the public service.

The target group of this project including 1,013 persons with disabilities in the area of Bansuan Town Municipality, from the total population in the area of 69,447. However, the observation found that only 822 people currently live in Bansuan and 90 of them are bed-ridden patient.The project was initiated to reduce the gap between normal and the disabled. Most disabled tend to isolate themselves from the society and due to their physical condition, it is really hard for them to access some government facilities and find a proper job. Therefore, the consequence is that the disabled feel despaired. Some may think that they will end up as a burden of their family and society. This problem among the disabled potentially leads them to state of depressed and might even be the reason to commit suicide. Bansuan, thus, advocated the Disabled Club to be the leader of Friendship Therapy project to emphasize and help the disabled since 2015 to the present day. As the success of the project, the number of disabled who can participate in social activities and find jobs that suit their condition has increased significantly.

In 2012, Bansuan Town Municipality initiated and organized “Disabled day” in order to give a space for the disabled in the community to communicate and exchange ideas to each other. On that day, we also found a Disabled Club and sought for a representative among the disabled who could speak for the rest regarding their rights, needs and what they wish to be happened. Moreover, in order to have members of the Club prepared and become potential disabled, the municipality held academic seminars and workshops, and also set MOU with the involved organizations to take care of the disabled in the community constantly.Currently, the municipality forms the team of people with disabilities to have a home visit every month. The team is distributed and goes to the house of the person who shares the same disability. They will have opportunity to talk and encourage each other. The team will share their experiences, give useful advices and information. The team will also provide a physical massage therapy and invite them to join other therapy programs. Moreover, registered nurses will perform a medical checkup and also give instructions and suggestions for them to take care of their health properly. After that, the team will exchange the information and discuss about the disabled that they visited with the committee of the Bansuan Town Municipality Empowerment of Person with Disabilities Center. The committee, is advised by local authorities, includes the Disabled Club, health volunteers, Chonburi Hospital, and sub-district health promoting hospitals. The purpose of this process is to analyze and develop an individual development plan for each of those with disabilities.

The main obstacle of the project was that the disabled disconnected themselves from the society and did not cooperate well with the government staffs. Additionally, the number of municipality staffs were insufficient to take care of all disabled people in the community so the process was sometimes discontinuous. To solve this problem, the municipality had cooperated with other third-party organizations and representatives from the Disabled Club, to co-organize skill workshops and take care of the disabled. From this point, the role of Bansuan staffs was changed to be a main facilitator instead of a main actor.

Friendship Therapy is the cooperated project which aims to improve potentials of the disabled in community. Bansuan Town Municipality formed the team led by the well-trained disabled to empower and equip necessary skills to other disables in the area. The project also offers skill workshops, therefore, the disabled who join the program are able to rely more on themselves on their daily basis and find the jobs that match their condition. Moreover, Friend Therapy project is consistent with The Fifth National Development Plan for The Life Quality of the Disabled which has a goal to develop the disabled sustain ably.

The project was inspired by the previous royal duties of HM. King Rama 9 of Thailand regarding helping the disabled. Bansuan also operated the project based on the UN SDGs and the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities Act in Thailand which state to improve the life quality of the disabled and advocate them to live happily in the society.

None

The project can potentially be adapted and transferred into another local contexts since the model of cooperation and administration is simple but robust. The project endorsed the participation of its people since it believed in the potential of people who care and empathize each other, and the roles of cooperated local organizations that could support the government to help those in need in its community.

The resources used in the project consisted of 4Ms which are Man, Money, Material and Management. Man included the leading disabled team, involved organizations, community development specialists, professional nurses, and so on. Secondly, Money, was obtained from public sectors and also from private sectors such as Tesco Lotus and Run Together Chonburi Club. Moreover, the project also gained huge supports in terms of funding from companies around the community. In terms of Material, the projects needed vehicles to access to the disabled houses, prostheses, medicines and other medical supplies. Lastly, Management was the process of effective administration by the municipality.

What makes the project sustainable is that Friendship Therapy, at its heart, was driven by the Disabled Club. It was the group of people who volunteered and dedicated themselves in helping and supporting the persons with disabilities because they understood those who were at the same conditions. Bansuan Municipality realized this strength so it involved other organizations to support their mission and made it more concrete. All stakeholders not only gain their benefit but also help support the disabled persons in the community.

Yes

The project evaluation was conducted internally by Bansuan Town Municipality mainly in the data collection of the amount of disabled people who attended social activities and got a job. Apart from that, the project was also evaluated by Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, as an external organization, using the criteria from the Good Governance Evaluation of Local Administrative Organizations.

Indicators we use to evaluate the project were as follows; The internal indicators included 1) the increase of disabled who can participate in social activities and 2) the increase of disabled who get a job after the support.The external indicators included 1) linkage between innovation and current issues /local context, 2) concrete objective for proceeding, 3) people participatory, 4) outcomes, and 5) social or/and economic impacts in the community.

As the outcomes of Friendship therapy project, the number of disabled persons who can participate in social activities and get a job after the support increased significantly—around 400 people from the targeted disabled. Moreover, the resource and local context were willing and ready to support the project since the report from the latest public hearing showed the eagerness of the people to solve the inequity of the disabled. Regarding the participation of people, there were sufficient volunteers from local community including the Disabled Club, Run Together Chonburi Club and Volunteer Club, to help and equip necessary skills to the disabled such as how to use wheelchairs, canes, prostheses and smartphones.

In order to solve the inequity of persons with disabilities in the community, the effective cooperation from every sector in the society is absolutely required. The role of Bansuan Town Municipality, thus, was the main facilitator and organizer who contacts and cooperates with other involved organizations to help the disabled and achieve the project. For example, the municipality has a responsible to improve the life quality of everyone in the community, but, to help the disabled, Bansuan needs to ally with the group of well-trained disabled to use their specialism. Furthermore, Chonburi Provincial Social Development and Human Security Office was invited to take part regarding job matching and support for the disabled. The Run Together Chonburi Club also was willing to be responsible for recreation activities in Friendship Therapy project. To sum, each involved organization is willing to cooperate in order to improve every person with disabilities in the community.

There were multiple stakeholders contributing to this project. The main role was Bansuan Town Municipality who initiated and invited all partners to help together in developing the disabled persons’ well-being. The partners included; - The Disabled Club – main actor who visited and gather information from the disabled and cooperate with the municipality officers to plan for developing each disabled person - Chonburi Provincial Social Development and Human Security Office – provided trainings for the Disabled Club and also sign language interpreters - Chonburi Hospital – supported medical services and receiving severe cases for special treatments - Samitivej Hospital Chonburi – accepted the disabled persons to work - Run Together Chonburi Club – provided physical therapy and encourage the disabled to attend social events - Chonburi Special Education Center – supported education and training sessions - Chonburi Empowerment of Person with Disabilities Center – monitored and evaluated the project

The crucial lesson learned was that although the goal and the intention of the project were carefully determined, the processes still needed to be more well-thought-out as the gap between the normal and the disabled remained. Therefore, in order to sustainably support the disabled, the key success factors were having well-trained disabled persons in the team to help take care of the others, and building effective cooperation among public, private and people sector because each individual disabled person needs understandings and consistent supports from the team to help them improve their potential, so that they can go out and live in the society with their pride. Regarding the next phrase of the project, Bansuan Town Municipality is willing to maintain the effectiveness of Friendship Therapy project since the number of the disabled who can live by themselves has increased significantly. Moreover, in the upcoming phrase, Bansuan will apply more technology such as linked database to monitor the processes and to effectively do a job matching for the disabled after training.