Koh Sukorn “Local culture and agriculture”

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Thailand Farming Construction Education Environment Children Social work Farming Construction +4 Fixed dates

About the project

📝 Detailed information

🏢 About the local organisation

Our partner is a Non Governmental Organization based in Songkhla province, Southern Thailand. Founded in 2004, they are a group of volunteers, members and organizers whose main aim is to contribute to long lasting social development. This is achieved through projects and activities that create opportunities where volunteers and local people can work, live and have fun together. Supporting aims are based around three themes :

Support - people, projects and activities
Friendship – building understanding, sharing, working together, creating relationships among volunteers themselves and with the locals
Preserving – culture and nature

💼 What the programme involves

For this specific project, volunteers join a family daily life of the rural island of Andaman coast in South Thailand. In this Muslim community, the main occupation is fishing but many also plant rice and watermelon, raise buffals and some have rubber plantation. Volunteers will help their host family to grow the vegetable garden around the house, collect the palm leaves to make roofs, and plant and collect rice and watermelon with other families in the community. Some activities with local kids are organized and require some time too.

Goals : To support the initiatives of local agricultural activities
• To fully and wisely utilize local resources
• To learn about Thai way of life and be part of the communities
• To let children be familiar with volunteers and learn in international/multi-cultural atmosphere

Daily life and tasks of the volunteer :

Volunteers will be staying together with a host family and share the daily life with them. They will mostly join agriculture activities but may be organizing activities with the local kids as well. Their place in the daily life of the host family is essential. They should be active members in the house and in the community and participate to chores and activities. Since 2016, all the middle term volunteers have been living either with the JaTak or the Bang Meng family and their experience has been really great. There is another family, Ja Yao who is also ready to welcome volunteers too. Both hosts are going every morning from dawn until the beginning of the afternoon for fishing but they still have enough energy to do more activities with volunteers after this.

Yearly sheduled activities of rice growing tradition on the island :

August and September : September is the starting month of rice planting season. Traditionally, villagers will prepare their best-selected paddy. The second step is to sow the fertilized paddy into nursery fields. Thirdly, plough the soil for transplanting the rice.

October : Transplant the seedlings from the nursery into the well-prepared rice fields Plant watermelon seeds on the rice field ridgesTake care of the rice field

November : Pick up ready-to-eat watermelons Take care of the rice field

December : Rice harvesting. Every year at the end of December, a special annual event will be organized at the island. People know it as Bergfah Andaman Festival. This festival is held widely in famous places located in the Andaman Sea. The aim is to promote products made by locals. There will be booths set up in which villagers sell food and sweets, and friendship activities like boat racing, football matches against village teams as well as performances on stage will be also held.

January - March :

- Sun-dry paddy for next planting

- Plant watermelon after the harvesting season

- Make compost from rice straw

April - July : Raining season: gardening around the house and activities with kids

Remark : During March-April and October, its school holiday in Thailand, which means we can make more activities with local kids.

Activités annuelles pour la tradition de la récolte de riz sur l’île :
-- Août et septembre : en septembre, la saison de plantation du riz commence. Traditionnellement, les villageois prépareront leur rizière de prédilection. La deuxième étape consiste à ensemencer le riz fertilisé dans les pépinières. La troisième étape consiste à labourer le sol pour replanter le riz.
-- Octobre : replanter les semis de la pépinière dans les rizières bien préparées. Planter des graines de pastèque dans les crêtes des rizières. Prendre soin des rizières.
-- Novembre : ramasser les pastèques mûres. Prendre soin des rizières.
-- Décembre : récolter le riz.
-- Janvier à mars : sécher la rizière pour la prochaine plantation ; planter des pastèques après la saison des récoltes ; fabriquer du compost à partir de paille de riz.
-- Avril à juillet (saison des pluies) : jardiner autour de la maison et participer à des activités avec les enfants.
Remarque : En mars, avril et octobre, ce sont les vacances scolaires en Thaïlande, ce qu’il signifie que l’on peut organiser plus d’activités avec les enfants locaux.

🏠 Accommodation on site

The volunteers either share one hut either sleep inside the house. There will be simple mattress, pillow and mosquito net. You will need to bring sleeping bag.

Volunteer will be part of the family who will take care of them for everything including food, security and transport. You will join daily tasks for collecting food and cooking.

🍲 Food

Local people eat rice (or noodles) 2 or 3 times a day with side dishes like curries, omelets, local leaves and vegetables and many fishes and sea food.

This commnity is Muslim and eat accordingly (i.e. no pork nor alcohol).

📍 About the location

Sukorn Island (Koh Sukorn) is a small island situated in Palian district, Trang province. The island covers an area of
14 sq km. Like every year, we will be conducting activities with communities of Baan Laem and Baan Toong. In
these 2 villages, there is population of 1,200 or 337 families, of which 95% are Muslims. The common occupations
of the villagers are fishing, rubber tapping, as well as agriculture; growing paddy, watermelons, traditional way of
growing vegetables, and keeping livestock. In general, the villagers are very generous and still remain the culture
of supporting and sharing with each other. Furthermore, they also believe that paddy and agriculture is the main
food stability of the village.
Already some years, a group of local researchers had been working with the 2 communities mentioned above. In
one community, the village members are still remaining their traditional way of living, while in another, people
started to drop their old values and turning to development from the cities. Less and less people are working on paddy fields, or growing their own food supply as it is easier to buy. Therefore, these researchers aim to bring
awareness to the locals to keep their old lifestyle and revive the tradition of growing paddy, other traditional
agriculture, as well as developing local rice species and doing farmer’s co-operative.

🎒 Leisure activities

Every year at the end of December, a special annual event will be organized at the island. People know it as Bergfah Andaman Festival. This festival is held widely in famous places located in the Andaman Sea. The aim is to promote products made by locals. There will be booths set up in which villagers sell food and sweets, and friendship activities like boat racing, football matches against village teams as well as performances on stage will be also held.

⚠️ Requirements

To ensure your safety, these are some rules for you to follow throughout your stay.

- No drugs (and alcohol in Muslim project sites)

- Volunteers are not permitted to drive cars or any other vehicles with motor in any case.

- Obey Thai law and community’s culture and custom.

- Failure to comply is cause for termination from the program.

ℹ️ Additional information

The fee is fixed to 6,500 Baht per person for the 7 days. The fee includes with the cost of on-arrival pick-up and
departure to and from the meeting point, charter boat to and from the island, for living expenses (gas, water,
electricity, food, transport) and materials used in projects/activities and for the other part to support financially
our organization. Volunteers’ fee is our only income.

In case you need to leave the project site with your own request, do make sure you pay some money to the villagers or coordinator for gasoline.

Interested in this project? Create your account and apply online.