CIEE Khon Kaen Newsletter--2013--SP--No. 3

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Isaan Insider A Quarterly Newsletter Issue No. 3 May 2013

Bioenergy Policy...2Mindful Consuming...2

Wanna Get ENGAGED???...3Mining for Gold...4

Food Flow in Rasi Salai...4Follow the Food...5

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Final Projects

Bioenergy Policy: One Step Forward, Two Steps BackBy Chloe Ginsburg, Drake University; Corinne Molz, University of Maryland; Astrid Quinones, Fairfield University

They say a good thing can’t last forever. When it comes to fossil fuels, this couldn’t be truer. Many scientists claim that we have already reached peak oil, meaning that we’ve used half of the world’s reserves of oil. Basically, it’s all downhill from here and the hill is getting steeper every day, with more and more cars hitting the road and more people demanding more energy sources. I f governments don’t get ahead of this drastic energy problem, change is going to come before nations are ready, which will have detrimental effects to international standards of living. This doesn’t only affect our lives 40 years from now, when it is projected that the last drop of oil will be spent; it’s affecting us right now. Ice caps are melting, the world’s temperature is rising, and freak floods and high temperatures are plaguing ecosystems worldwide. Is anyone going to step up before it is too late?

Luckily, some have. Though the progress is still slow, governments are working to improve renewable energy sources and increase their production to replace the use of fossil fuels. Some of the most prominent advances have been in solar, wind, and biomass. In fact, Thailand has become the leader in biofuel production in the Greater Mekong Region and the third greatest producer in Asia behind China and Indonesia.

Biomass energy generation is the burning of plant or animal waste materials or secondary products, such as wood or straw, to create carbon dioxide for energy use. The resources are renewable and previously unused by farmers, therefore increasing their profits. On the other hand, mass production of biomass products can lead to loss of biodiversity and land will be used primarily to power the demand fo r fue l r a ther than food

consumption. However, biomass has been beneficial in transitioning the energy sector to more sustainable methods.

Though this method has been deemed desirable, the policy implementation has been shown to have some complications. In Thailand, there is no requirement for biomass plants to be a certain distance away from surrounding villages. When built too close, villagers suffer from accompanying effects including health problems, such as respiratory issues from airborne pollutants like sawdust, and increased t ra ffic f rom product transportation that is part of the energy generation process.

At the same time, people’s participation leaves something to be desired. A public hearing is required, though many proposed plants will conduct the hearing at times when villagers are unable to come or have them sign something when they don’t have the information. This should be early in the approval process so companies tend to acquire signatures as proof that it was held even if villagers were not in attendance.

There has also been a shift towards more small-scale biofuel power plants. Though this

can be beneficial , many plants are maintaining their power plants at 9.9 megawatts energy produced solely to avoid the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which is required for plants generating 10 megawatts or more.

With all of this said, our project has consisted of writing a report regarding some of the issues with biomass public policy in Thailand, and comparing its functions to that of Denmark who is known for having effective small scale biomass policy. Denmark has made a commitment to be solely dependent on renewable resources by 2050, making their system a good model for the future of sustainable resources. Our report will be given to a local NGO, named P’Sodsai, who works with a village facing the construction of a proposed biofuel plant. We are also producing a pamphlet to be distributed to villagers describing the policy issues in Thailand compared to Denmark’s policy. Though shifting to biofuel will not solve the world’s current oil crisis, it is definitely a step in the right direction. [email protected]@[email protected]

Mindful ConsumingBy Maia Cole, Amherst College; Hannah Damgaard, Susquehannah University; Emma Balmuth-Loris, Brandeis University; Aziza Seykota, Washington University

Since participating in CIEE’s study abroad program in Thailand, we have learned some life changing things. We had the opportunity to spend a lot of time staying with villagers throughout the Northeast. Their lives and lifestyles are extremely different from ours in the US. Their houses do not have locks, kids run freely between houses in the community, and people often share meals together. Many of the villagers have very few physical possessions and live more simply than we do in America. And we noticed that they were happy.

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This got us thinking about our consumerism and all the beliefs that we’ve been taught growing up in America. Each day, we see hundreds of carefully placed advertisements. Neutrogena tells us we’ll be beautiful if we use their facewash, Nike says we’ll be athletic if we get their sneakers, and Apple claims we’ll be cool if we buy their electronics. Ads connect happiness with material possessions so skillfully that we start to believe our happiness is contingent on buying things.

So what’s the big deal?

One of the biggest problems is that the environment and the world simply cannot sustain our mass consumption habits for too much longer. Every time we upgrade our iPhones, get rid of last year’s wardrobe, or trash our daily plastic Starbucks coffee cup, where do we think it goes? And that’s just one side of the problem. Every laptop we buy uses hundreds of different metals that must be mined from all over the world. And this process can’t go on forever.

Pretty much everything we buy has hidden costs, both environmental and social. But because we don’t see every aspect that goes into making, for example, a pair of jeans, we forget about where they came from. We forget about the materials used, the labor involved, and the transportation necessary to bring those jeans to the mall. And this is dangerous.

For our final project we set out to create an interactive website with information about mindful consumption and advertising along with a forum for people to express their opinions about consumption and find support from like-minded people. We want to connect our site to the ENGAGE community and put it out to organizations at our universities. One of our main goals of creating this website was continuing to process the lessons we’ve learned here in Thailand when we go back to the US. As a long-term goal, we plan to continue to update the site with new information, articles, and movie clips, and continue to contribute to the blog. We hope that this site will fill a much-needed niche and offer support to those people dissatisfied with our consumerist culture.

We made this website because all of us are consumers. We’ve all bought too many new shoes at the mall or too many cheap shirts from Forever 21. But we’ve also started to see the problems with over-consumption. We’re not perfect. We’re still tempted to buy unnecessary things. So we want this website to be a place where we, and other likeminded people, can work through our struggles with consumerism [email protected]

[email protected]@[email protected]

Wanna Get ENGAGED???By Melanie Ferraro, University of Colorado Boulder; Jeremy Starn, Art Institute of Boston; Sonja Favaloro, Bates College

Want to continue learning about issues from a grassroots perspective back in the States?  Like group-building and processing?  Dig the alternative education model with an emphasis on experiential learning and student empowerment?  Want to “Get in the Van!?”  Well, we have just the opportunity for you!  Drum roll please... we would like to present ENGAGE UNIVERSITY 2014!!!!Buckle your seatbelts everyone, Engage U is coming to you!   This five week alternative study program will take participants across the United States to learn about different topics (organic farming anyone?) from a grassroots perspective and how they impact communities.  Tie your shoes tight because this trip will rock your socks off !  

The past two weeks, we (Sonja, Jeremy, and Melanie F.) have been toiling away to restart Engage University, an alternative summer study program that immerses college-age students in a variety of community development initiatives across America to stimulate grassroots engagement and collaboration. Through experiential learning activities, students will explore topics such as American identity and culture, complex social and economic deve lopment i s sue s , community organizing, environmental issues, student empowerment, and alternative education.

Our program will offer students interactive learning experiences, such as home stays in target communities and reciprocal exchanges with key players, who are heavily involved with the community (such as local NGOs, community activists, local government officials, and average community members). We will also promote student empowerment by having students take ownership of their education through student-led workshops and group-building activities.

We have spent the past two weeks getting this project off the ground through organizing an Engage University Planning Committee comprised of members of the ENGAGE network, starting to look for site hosts, and conceptualizing our vision statement and educational model. It is exciting to think of implementing so many facets of the community process structure and alternative education model we’ve been experiencing in Thailand, and sharing this way of learning with other students!

How can you help with this fantastic program? Go on it of course!  If you already have plans, you can still help by connecting us with site hosts in America whose communities are facing environmental or social justice issues. We are looking for various types of hosts, both people willing to meet with us for as little as one day and people who are able to provide us with accommodations and connect us with communities and projects for longer periods of time. We hope that by getting to spend some time with communities students will have the opportunity to learn while, at the same time, making a contribution to the community or organization’s work. We are excited for the opportunity to help with new or ongoing projects and campaigns in the US, as well as to get involved more deeply with social movements. The best way to reach us is emailing us at [email protected]. Also, check out our website at http://engageuniversity.webs.com/.

We are so excited about this project and the incredible amount of support we have already received from the ENGAGE network! As we leave Thailand and prepare to keep planning this trip over the next year, it is great to feel that we have a team of people helping us out. This program has taught us a lot about facilitation, group process, and the power of experiential learning, and we can’t wait to put that into action once again. If you are able to help us with publicity and recruitment, curriculum development, or finding site hosts, please get in touch with us and help make our vision a reality! See you next summer - don’t forget your [email protected]

Through experiential learning

activities, students will

explore topics such as

American identity and culture,

complex social and economic

development issues,

community organizing,

environmental issues, student

empowerment, and

alternative education.

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Mining for Gold: Deeper Than the MountainBy Mariko Dodson, Occidental College; Walter Wuthmann, Bowdoin College; Keith Warner, Ohio University; Judy Florio, Muhlenburg College

A couple weeks ago, we sat on the floor of the big classroom and were charged with making a life-changing decision. All the options for our final projects were right there, written on the whiteboard at the front of the classroom in Josh’s childlike script. Which project should we choose? The campaign for organic food at Mahasarakham University? Comparative research study on Thai and Danish energy policies? Fate’s hand moved four of us to choose what we saw as the most influential, substantial, and challenging project for us: making a heartfelt, inspiring video for the Na Nong Bong villagers about the effects of the nearby gold mine. Villagers who have taken the lead organizing their community against the mine requested the video to help them spread their message. So on April 30, Judy, Walter, Keith, and Mariko put pen to paper and started their storyboard. Little did they know how their simple “video project” would evolve into something great.

We began our journey by speaking with P’Kovit, the charismatic NGO who works with Na Nong Bong in trying to fight the gold mine company that they bel ieve i s contaminating their water supply with cyanide. We told P’Kovit our original and, frankly, bad idea of making two video presentations – one for children and one for adults. The adult version would be more fact-intensive and would probably take the form of an automated Powerpoint. P’Kovit shook up our game plan, though, after showing us

“The Story of Stuff,” an animated youTube video on materialism. The villagers, P’Kovit explained, were interested in a single video done in a similar style – a story, rather than just raw facts, to draw people into their cause. When we visited Na Nong Bong the next day, villagers reiterated this preference and approved the sample clip we’d made the day before. To capture the strengths of “The Story of Stuff ” – a video that is so strong because it conveys intense material through an eye-pleasing, hand-drawn cartoon animation style – we chose to make an RSA-esque animated video about mining in Na Nong Bong.

The RSA Animate series is a style of videography where one person illustrates a scene while another person films that person drawing. The video is then sped up on the computer to create the impression of motion in a drawing that would otherwise be static. Once we had our filming method nailed down, we filled in the details of our project’s storyboard. We went through one, two, three, four, five drafts of a script with our Program Facilitators and ajaans, and then submitted the

final English script to Ajaan Poi for Thai translation. As we made this video for the villagers’ use, Thai narration was crucial. And as our Thai language skills remain sadly rudimentary, we called in our friend Peach, a Thai peer tutor, to record the Thai narration.

On May 9th, a week and a half after doodling out our first storyboard, we sat on the floor of a temple and watched our video on a projector we’d strung up by a dog leash. We waited with baited breath to gauge the villagers’ reaction -- and let out a sigh when they smiled and clapped at the end of the video. They then discussed the content for about 30 minutes, which we didn’t really understand, and then asked to watch it again. We watched it again, got some feedback, and thank-yous, and then left them with our video and a promise for an edited one. As we bumped back down that mountain road in the familiar CIEE van, we all felt a sense of gratefulness, not the usual sense of relief that comes after finishing a final project. As Mariko said to one meh, the Thai word for mom, as we parted: “It was an honor to serve you.”[email protected]@[email protected]@muhlenberg.edu

Food Flow (and More!) in Rasi SalaiBy Avery Ches, Tulane University; Melanie Medina, Whitman College; Eleanor Bennett, Middlebury College; Kayla Murphy, Tulane University

The truck bed was surprisingly refreshing for 3:00 am. As we sped along the dark country road toward the Rasi Salai Market, the wind in our hairs (yes, we mean leg hairs) was an invigorating way to wake up.

We were traveling to the market to conduct a survey. Why so early? 2:00-5:00 is the prime time to buy groceries, shockingly. And groceries were our game: we wanted to know what kinds of foods are bought and sold, and where the food goes. This information would provide a baseline for potentially setting up a green market here in Rasi Salai.

If you are wondering, as many of our interviewees did, this “green market” will be a part of a local cooperative focused on organic food. Its potential location would be the Rasi Salai Learning Center - a beautiful piece of land dotted with little huts, a sala, and even a rustic herbal sauna.- all located on the reservoir of the Rasi Salai Dam.

The Learning Center’s

purpose is to preserve local

wisdom, which is in danger of

dying out as a result of the

environmental effects of the

dam.

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The Learning Center’s purpose is to preserve local wisdom, which is in danger of dying out as a result of the environmental effects of the dam. Currently, rice varieties are grown and studied, a vegetable garden flourishes, and villagers raise chickens for eggs. And everything is organic: a perfect platform for the beginning of a green market.

The past year of CIEE projects have included researching and reporting on a potential Green Market and Fishing Co-op, and our project was meant to contribute towards these plans’ eventual fruition. P’Banya, our sparky NGO leader who has ideas more numerous than water guns on Songkran, guided us throughout the time we spent in Rasi Salai. In addition to food, he suggested we also track the handicrafts made in the surrounding villages to inform a potential cooperative for those as well.

So, after we completed 60 market surveys, which involved hours of begging shoppers loaded down with plastic bags to stand still long enough to answer a few questions (please, it’ll take just five minutes!), we hopped in the pick-up truck once again to visit three nearby villages known for their handicrafts.

Instead of running after busy shoppers, we sat down with yais ( the Thai word for grandmother) upon yais. Our questions about food, handicrafts, and interest in a green market/cooperative were well received, though with some confusion. Many of the yais, as well as other elders, were keen on the ideas but hesitant about when, where, and why a cooperative would be created.

We summed up our findings and created a large colorful infographic map that details the flow of food at the Rasi Salai Market and surrounding areas, as well as villagers’ responses to the surveys. It is intended for the Learning Center to keep and use to educate its visitors about what a cooperative is and why they want to start one. We also wrote a more detailed report for P’Banya and future CIEE students: it includes information about where villagers currently produce, buy, and sell food and crafts, and provides suggestions for future students involvement. The latter includes information on how often the cooperative would run, what products would be popular, and what educational campaigns still need to be done.

We hope that our project brings these exciting potential projects one step closer to [email protected]@[email protected]@tulane.edu

“Follow the Food”: Our Two-Day Adventure in MahasarakhamBy Ben McCormack, Bates College; Kaitlin Reed, Susquehannah University; Kelly Hardin, Macalester College; Nelson Falkenburg, Whitman College

When we initially signed up for our final project, we all had the notion that we would be organizing and implementing a campaign about food safety on the campus of Mahasarakham University (MSU). Through preliminary discussions with NGOs P’Ubol and P’Breow from the Alternative Agriculture Network (AAN), we learned about the opportunity to work with MSU students and thought about what form the project could take in order to have the greatest possible impact. We all agreed that we needed to help address the lack of convenient access to safe food that MSU students faced, as well as the lack of food safety awareness on campus. However, since our project time was during the university’s summer vacation and only a fraction of students were on campus, it seemed premature to hold a campaign. Therefore, we decided to devote our project to aiding in the creation of a student group dedicated to food awareness at MSU, which would provide a launching point for a campus-wide campaign further down the road and support action in the long-term.

Our ideas eventually evolved into a plan to facilitate a two-day workshop, called “Follow the Food,” on the origins of food at MSU and the effects of chemical contamination on human health and the environment. The goal of the two days was to spark greater interest in food issues among the students at MSU, while supporting the formation of a student

organization to continue the discussion about food safety and promote awareness on campus after the workshop.

Planning a two-day bilingual workshop that would engage, educate, and inspire students was quite an undertaking. It required consistent communication with our NGO consultant P’Breow and the President of the Student Union, P’Boing, as well as constant translation by Ajaan Jeab. We spent hours doing background research, as well as a total of about 15 hours planning specifics of the workshop, finalizing a schedule, doing run-throughs, meeting with ajaans and NGOs, and generally perfecting the script of the two days. The planning of the workshop took about a week, while the workshop itself only ran for two days.

As much as you plan for a workshop—detailing the timeline, contingencies, and script—there are always going to be last-minute adjustments and wrenches tossed into the plan. Upon our arrival at Mahasarakham University, we learned that the location of the workshop had changed, the number of students involved differed from the initial estimate, and no one arrived on time. However, there were lovely drinks and snacks provided for us, some nice flower bouquets on the stage, and, when the students did arrive—running on Thai time—they seemed excited and more outgoing than we had anticipated. We started a few minutes late, gave our introductions, and then moved into our energizer. We were nervous about this. We thought that the students would be shy and not willing to participate in our silly games. The students not only participated, but also exceeded our expectations and even asked if we’d like to play a Thai game with them. The game, led by Yoschanin, a round-faced and

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exuberant student with a bowl-cut, was a strange combination between rock-paper-scissors and line dancing. The losers had to do a sort of “panda dance,” making everyone look like drunken marionettes. Not only was this game amusing and energizing, but it also served as an early cultural bridge between our two groups.

Throughout the rest of the first day we heard lectures from two ajaans on food safety and on the organic movement, planned interview questions with the students, went to the main cafeteria during lunch to interview students, and wrapped up the day. Along the way there were detours (the questions we decided upon with the students weren’t quantitative, so it was harder to analyze the data), speed bumps (translation slowed down and complicated things), and roadblocks (some students had to leave for work and interest waned by the day’s end), but progress was made in terms of group cohesion and how much students learned.

The second day was paced differently. We traveled as a group to a chemical-using kale farm outside of Mahasarakham where students asked questions, saw where some of their food comes from, and learned why the chemicals are used. There was also the brief adoption of a turtle by several people, an impromptu visit to see monkeys, the consumption of delicious Isaan village food (sans kale), and a sleepy bus ride back to the university. Upon arrival, following some much-needed ice cream, we discussed what students learned at the farm and wrapped up the workshop itself by discussing future steps to take. The students seemed hopeful that the workshop momentum would continue into future years, but were more excited about the Facebook group we made to stay in contact with them. Since the workshop ended around four thirty—meaning a couple hours had passed since gorging ourselves—we then all went to dinner at a buffet/karaoke room. This venue choice resulted in a lot of light-hearted cross-cultural peer pressuring, showboating, and uncomfortably full stomachs. The meal ended with a lovely walk around a lake, visiting an on-campus zoo, and taking about a hundred pictures.

Although the goodbyes were exchanged and our workshop ended, our hope is that without our presence the group will continue to thrive, raising awareness on campus about the issues of chemically-grown food, and eventually making structural changes to the situation of organic food availability at [email protected]@[email protected]@whitman.edu

Although the goodbyes were

exchanged and our workshop

ended, our hope is that

without our presence the

group will continue to thrive..

Glossary:

Ajaan: Thai word for teacher

Isaan: Northeastern region of Thailand

Meh: Thai word for mother

Yai: Thai word for grandmother