Social Welfare Projects
Ever since she was still a young mother caring for her 3 children in the confines of the new villa in Srapathum Palace, the Princess Mother proved that Thai housewives could make good use of their time and contribute to society. In 1932, when her children had started school and she had more time on her hands, she set up an American-style “Sewing-circle”, inviting close acquaintances to join the group. Among the members of the circle were Mom Chao Sipphanphansanur Sohnakul, Thanpuying Prayong Sanidvongs na Ayudhya, Khunying Chalaem Puranasiri, Khunying Srivisarnvaja, Khunying Prem, Damrongbaedyakhun, Thanpuying Poa Anurakshraja mondira, and expatriate wives such as Mrs. Zimmerman, Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Langesen, Mrs. Nederguard, Mrs. Pendleton and Mrs. Reeve, whose husbands were missionaries or lecturer at Chulalongkorn University.
The sewing circle members started off by making their own clothes, then gradually made clothes for poor children at various hospitals. They met once a week, each member taking turns hosting tea at home between 4 and 6 pm.
It soon became a procedure for the Princess Mother to set aside her own money to purchase necessary items for poor villages during her increasingly frequent upcountry visits. These gifts included T-shirts, towels, multipurpose “pha khao ma” cloth, and stationary for schoolteachers, school uniforms, and stationery for schoolchildren, and pha khao ma, sarongs, needles and thread, medicine, tinned food and dried foodstuff for villagers, while small children would receive various toys suitable for their age.
She also set up with her own personal funds a number of foundations, most notably the Border Patrol Police Support Foundation, and the New Life Foundation for those who have recovered from leprosy or mental illness.
Apart from her own personal funds, the money for these various projects came from the sale of handicraft made through projects initiated by the Princess Mother, such as pressed-flower greeting cards, which was ner hobby, and brooms and brushes made from the sisal hemp, which became a very popular product.
In 1985, the Cabinet approved the proposal of the National Committee for the Promotion and Development of Social Welfare Activities that 21 October, the Princess Mother’s birthday, be declared National Social Welfare Day, in honour of the Princess Mother, who devoted her time and efforts, in addition to her own funds, to well-being of the people. As she was also a nurse, it has since been renamed National Nurses' Day (TH: วันพยาบาลแห่งชาติ Wan Phayaban Haeng Chat).
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Famous quotes containing the words social, welfare and/or projects:
“...I remembered the rose bush that had reached a thorny branch out through the ragged fence, and caught my dress, detaining me when I would have passed on. And again the symbolism of it all came over me. These memories and visions of the poor—they were the clutch of the thorns. Social workers have all felt it. It holds them to their work, because the thorns curve backward, and one cannot pull away.”
—Albion Fellows Bacon (1865–1933)
“I have great faith in ‘ordinary parents.’ Who has a child’s welfare more at heart than his ordinary parent? It’s been my experience that when parents are given the skills to be more helpful, not only are they able to use these skills, but they infuse them with a warmth and a style that is uniquely their own.”
—Haim Ginott (20th century)
“One of the things that is most striking about the young generation is that they never talk about their own futures, there are no futures for this generation, not any of them and so naturally they never think of them. It is very striking, they do not live in the present they just live, as well as they can, and they do not plan. It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for a future, none at all.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)