Mae Fah Luang Foundation

The foundation's mission focuses on three main areas: “improving social and economic development, preserving the environment, and supporting local art and culture.”[2] In 1972, Her Royal Highness Princess Srinagarindra (Princess Mother), grandmother of the present King of Thailand, Vajiralongkorn, founded the Hill Crafts Foundation to offer market access for craft-making villages in the northern highlands.

The Hill Crafts Foundation addressed the problem of poverty and poor living conditions faced by the ethnic minority groups in northern Thailand by promoting and marketing their handicrafts to supplement their income, as well as teaching them skills and disciplines such as Thai language, basic math, and health education at Rai Mae Fah Luang in Chiang Rai (today known as the Mae Fah Luang Art and Culture Park).

With the development of the Doi Tung area and easier access to schooling opportunities, the Rai Mae Fah Luang, which previously offered boarding and education facilities to ethnic children, was transformed into the Mae Fah Luang Art and Cultural Park in 2008, in line with its mission to preserve and support local art and culture.

The MFLF has continued to expand its efforts in supporting vulnerable communities in Thailand and internationally, playing an important role as an intermediary between state and private organizations.

[6] In 2013, Ikea entered into a partnership with Doi Tung to produce ceramics, tableware, and mulberry paper sold in the limited edition collections Annanstans and Hantverk.

The Rai Mae Fah Luang became a home to hundreds of youths from rural areas with no access to education so that they could attend schools in the city.

The role of the Rai Mae Fah Luang as an educational institution came to an end when the DTDP established schools in the vicinity of their villages.

Today, the area has been transformed into the Mae Fah Luang Art and Culture Park, housing the region's largest collection of Lan Na arts, including the teak wood exhibition, a botanical collection, and the Golden Pavilion that the people of Chiang Rai built and presented to the princess mother in honor of her 84th birthday.

The model follows four general stages: Key partners: Siam Commercial Bank PLC, Chaipattana Foundation The Pang Mahan Reforestation Project covers 2,250 hectares and is home to six ethnic minority groups in 18 villages, totaling about 7,600 people.

This CSR initiative centers on reforestation as a means to poverty alleviation and sustainable development, becoming the first domestic outreach project that utilized and adapted the foundation's SALD approach.

As in Pang Mahan, sustenance and economic forestry zones promoting bamboo, banana, and tea oil were implemented to provide livelihood.

The watershed in Nan Province contributes to as much as 45% of the water that flows into the Chao Phraya River, yet the villages face problems of drought in the summer and severe flooding and landslides during the rainy season.

The local communities relied on slash-and-burn cultivation and high levels of chemical pesticides and fertilizers to cope with land shortages on the steep slopes.

With help and labor from the locals, the MFLF worked to maximize the use of the existing irrigation system, making repairs as well as building new check dams, weirs, and reservoirs to direct water to agricultural plots.

The project introduced terraced rice paddy fields to deal with the problem of demineralized soil and land shortages, increasing productivity, and reducing the use of forestland.

Key partners: Chaipattana Foundation; Royal Initiative Discovery Institute; Model Farm Project at Her Majesty the Queen's Initiative of the Northeast Region; Ministry of Interior; Udon Thani Provincial Administration The project in Nong Wua So District of Udon Thani Province focuses on the underutilized Huay Klai Reservoir as the main subject.

The primary survey showed that the reservoir was in perfect condition, yet communities in the vicinity could not fully benefit from it since there was no proper water distribution system.

[10] Here, the first outreach project replicating the SALD model was carried out, first by providing health care by Thai mobile medical units to address their immediate needs.

Children were taught a formal curriculum as well as practical agricultural skills in the school's vegetable plot, chicken coop, and fishpond.

In addition, the improved quantity and quality of sheep provide a larger raw material pool to capture further downstream value-adding opportunities and lead towards the development of related community-based enterprises.

In addition, a wool-processing and yarn-spinning project will be established in order to create immediate employment opportunities and income for Afghan women to work from their homes.

The production of high-quality handspun yarn would be able to add value to sheared sheep wool and link into other downstream industries such as textile, carpets and handicrafts, generating further income and job prospects.

[10] Key Partners: The Government of Thailand Thailand International Cooperation Agency (TICA) The Government of Indonesia National Narcotics Board of Indonesia (BNN) Office of the Governor of Aceh Provincial Health Office of Aceh The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Sambinoe Foundation The MFLF was approached by the UNODC and the Government of Indonesia to help solve the problem of cannabis cultivation by creating other possible livelihood activities to alleviate poverty using the SALD approach.

Over three years, the various development activities, including the goat farm, seed banks, vegetable cultivation plots, and rice mill, have brought about an increase in income for the community of Maheng-Lamcot from an average of 83 US cents to US$2.70 per person per day.

Key Partners: Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department (LBVD) of the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries of Myanmar Thailand International Development Cooperation Agency (TICA) Office of the Narcotics Control Board of Thailand (ONCB) Yenan Chaung Township is one of the least developed townships in Magwe Region, which has a population of about 150,000.

Secondly, the Foundation worked with the community on developing water resources- including installing hand pumps, digging new wells, and repairing and building reservoirs and weirs.

A goat bank, as well as para-veterinary training and services, complemented by livestock medicine funds, were set up to increase assets and income for the people.