Kuan Mai Bong is a Buddhist village located in Cha-uat district of Nakorn Sri Tammarat province, Southern Thailand. The population of the village consists of approx. 720 people (212 homes). Most villagers make a living on their property such as rubber plantation and fruit orchard. Some others are temporary workers earning wages from occasional hire. The village was named Kuan Mai Bong deriving from its abundance in timber (Kuan Mai Bong = hill of timber). Due to its fertile of natural resources of hardwood and minerals in the past, this province as well as the neighboring provinces, Trang and Pattalung, was announced a concession of forestry by the government in 1971 along with the mine industry. The concession had continuously taken away lots of valuable trees and minerals for years. In the meantime, the government challenged an uprising of anti-government communist groups at the time, it therefore launched a campaign of communist crackdown throughout the nation; the mountainous landscape of the three provinces was thought to be a hidden place of the communists. The forestry and mine concession covering the mountain range of the three provinces was permanently restrained and brought under surveillance by the concerned government. Years later the situation had gradually improved, the government allowed people to make a living on the once-spoiled land. It was possessed by newcomers from nearby villages and soon after, an agricultural community was founded. In 1982, the present-running government proclaimed this area to be restricted and turned it into a preserved forest covering 1100 square kilometers throughout the 3 provinces (Nakorn Sri Tammart, Trang and Pattalung) and launched a policy of pushing settlers to relocate. The villagers rejected but after a negotiation with the government, they were allowed to continue living under the dealt agreement.

In 2005, Kuan Mai Bong villagers began to be aware of their forestry resources. Losses in natural abundance in the past made them concerned on how man and nature can live in balance. Serious forestry preservation and rehabilitation took place. They gathered to explore their forest, paid more attention to natural resources management concerning protection of flash flood and soil problem. They came up with activities such as building a natural dike, making a wildfire-defending range and building a boundary mark between villagers’ land and preserved forest, for example.

Roywan Pan Pba Alternative School was started from nothing but motivation and solidarity in March 2011 by the initiatives of a local environmental activist Pi Ju along with endless support of Kuan Mai Bong villagers and the work of the pilot international volunteers from Finland, Denmark, Germany and Thailand. The main aim shared with the local community of Kuan May Bong is to make the next generation (local kids) be able to stay self-sufficient in their environment and to respect it as a vital part of their life. Actually it could be done only with the transmission of elders’ local skills and knowledge, but we believe the growing temptation of parents to send their kids to study in the city (for “better education”) and the dream of some young locals to leave their village for the consumption world can be refrained by organizing activities, learning and sharing with volunteers from outside.

The alternative school is located in a mountainous village of Ban Tad Mountain Range. It is approx. 16 kilometers far from the main road reaching up to the mountain. It is surrounded by rubber plantations, fruit orchards and scattered settlement of villagers’ homes. This project is strongly recommended to those who come with motivation to work with the nature physically and mentally, being able to handle the most basic living condition with limited facilities, being able to handle the spontaneous working environment, and rather to stay the distance from civilization because there are few chances for town as it is not easy to go out often. Volunteers should bear in mind that you’re going to work in a team, everything shared, and responsibility taken equally. Above all, full involvement in community matters is a must.

Volunteers should keep some time before or after this volunteering if they wish to travel around by themselves

This project is to build and run this alternative school together. Volunteers also dedicate themselves for community work when there’s need. You can this way experience real solidarity in this strong community where money is not as important as some would like to make us believe.

There is still some construction work to be built on/repaired in the school area. As part of the team, volunteers share great support to the local project to help keep the school and its landscape in good order. As well, vegetable gardens as well as mushroom shed, chicken and duck farm and fish pond volunteers are given responsibility to take care of. One of the school plans concerning the campaign of agricultural self-sufficiency is that people need no buying food from a market but to grow or to raise whatever edible and make it into meals for their families.

On week-ends, the kids gather at the school to do activities with the volunteers. About 25 children come every week-end to spend time at the school. Volunteers decide together how the school days are spent. The opportunities are endless: teaching different subjects such as Basic English, art, agriculture, games. The kids vary in age, the youngest ones are approximately 7, and the oldest about 20. This is never a problem. They like to participate in activities together. If you know any activities worth arranging for the kids from your country or any teaching ideas, please bring supplies you may need with you.

In everyday life, apart from main tasks, you are also expected to help with the family’s daily tasks which are helping preparing meals for family members, doing washing up, preparing food for animals and feeding them twice a day, collecting eggs, watering plants in dry season, and keeping the house area, kitchen, coffee-tea table, bathrooms and restrooms tidy and clean. Moreover, you’re more than appreciated to also spend some time after work with villagers in Kuan Kilom village playing sports or keeping on close relationship with them when you’re not very tired from your main tasks.

Apart from staying with your volunteer friends at the school, there is another way to get deeper understanding of the village life-style. Volunteers will have the opportunity to stay with a Thai family in Kuan Mai Bong village.

Drinking habit of male villagers - You may be surprised to see men gather up for their after-work drinking party. After the exhausting day from gardening work, drinking is what they normally enjoy. It’s a local habit, way of community lifestyle.

- To support Roywan Pan Pba Alternative School
- To learn from each other among volunteers themselves, and from volunteers to villagers vice versa through “learning by doing” concept
- To build good relationship between volunteers and local people
- To be a part of Kuan Mai Bong community
- To let children be familiar with volunteers and learn in international/multi-cultural atmosphere

Huts shared with other volunteers/home-stay

Cha-uat district, Nakorn Sri Tammarat province, Southern Thailand.

Hat Yai (from Bangkok you can choose to travel by plane, bus or train).

- Participants are responsible for their own travel costs and all personal expenses during free time.
- Participants are responsible for taking care of their own insurance.
- Participants should respect and have willingness to understand other cultures and backgrounds.
- Living conditions will be in Thai style (willingness to adapt and enjoy simple conditions of living).
- Willingness to work and live together, build friendship with local people and other volunteers, let's try to make this world a nice place to live in!
-Participants should have the basic skills/knowledge toward the project they apply for.
- Participants should ask for a visa “Non-Immigrant type”. DaLaa will provide an invitation letter and officially registered paper.

The minimum period of staying is two months.
The fee will be used for living expenses (gas, water, electricity, food) and for materials used in projects/activities. Also some part of the fee will be used to support Thai volunteers and our organization.

The fee will be used for living expenses (gas, water, electricity, food) and materials used in projects/activities. Some part of the fee will be used to support Thai volunteers and our organization.

8,000 THB per month (approx. 200 Euro), but if you stay over 3 months, from 4th month onward, instead of paying 8,000 THB every month, we reduce the fee to 7,000 THB (approx. 175 Euro) per month.

A 6 months stay volunteer, during months 1 to 3, 8,000 THBx3=24,000 THB, and months 4 to 6, 7,000 THBx3=21,000 THB. Alltogether 45,000 THB/6 months.

We in DaLaa, were first introduced to this village through a recommendation from one of the Hat Yai University clubs called Backpackers. The club is quite active in organizing activities involving environmental preservation, trekking, and initiating activities with the local communities. Some of these activities they did together with the villagers in Baan Kok Riang were planting trees at Pa Dam Watershed Waterfall and also by the roadsides as well as organizing activities with the kids and adults in the village. Whenever they organize projects in the village, DaLaa will be always invited to join. As up until now, it has been going on for almost 8 years and the university club is still keeping in touch with the community in the village and initiated beneficial projects that support the community.

Mr. Kanong (Loong Jaeng) and Mr. Suthep (Loong Sian), two of the well-respected individuals and senior advisors of the university club, they are the main community members in Baan Kok Riang that took the initiative to turn their land properties covering approximately 1 hector of agriculture land and 3,200 sq. meters of the house compound into an Agriculture Learning Center of this village. Since last year, Mr. Kanong and Mr. Suthep have been laboriously growing variety of vegetables, rice and local seasonal fruits like pineapples, jackfruits, longans, etc. for their own consumption and this has helped generate motivations for the other villagers to follow in their footsteps. The main purpose for this effort is to try to create a learning center functioning sort of as a working model for the surrounding community members, especially for the new generation, to grow healthy organic non-chemically induced rice, vegetables, fruits as well as breeding up animals like chickens, and fisheries for their family’s daily consumption without harming the nature. Our societies nowadays are so used to the convenient way of living and buying everything from the market without realizing that most of the food products sold in market heavily contained dangerous chemicals and pesticides, which would eventually lead to severe health problems. Unfortunately, both of the project initiators started their own plans, without having much support from anyone else. Therefore, DaLaa saw this as a meaningful project for us and volunteers to be involved in, as well as taking the opportunity to learn about this highly sustainable self-reliant living, especially the most crucial during the initial time of the project when there are a lot of works to do and things to get improved around. Moreover, it’s very important to give them all the help and support that they need in bringing about the awareness and on the meantime build-up collaborations and train apprentices within their own and neighboring communities.
Last year in August, DaLaa organized a two-week short term work-camp with several international and local volunteers engaged in some activities with villagers and local school children to see the possibilities of setting up a long term project there at the village. We saw that there is an urgent need for volunteers to help them, apart from growing vegetables, to improve the condition and surrounding vicinity of the house which is going to be the learning center, and to assist in the construction of a few basic facilities such as fish pond, chicken cage, and small huts in the vegetable fields.

Considering that this is going to be the initial attempt of the long term project, the volunteers should be able to handle physical hard work, expecting that there will be some construction work involved. Normally, in the morning, you will start working in the vegetable farm from around 7 a.m. until 3 or 4 in the afternoon. The finishing time can differ each day depending on the heat, the amount of work that has to be done, as well as your own ability and endurance. However, there’ll be few hours break during the hottest time of the day. Everyday work will involve nurturing vegetables plants and fruit trees, collecting vegetables for your own consumption, feeding animals, growing seeds or nursing young plants. At the end of the day, you may have your own free time, or you can take the opportunity together with our project hosts and coordinator to further learning the local language and as for the sharing exchange, teaching them English. Some children may come to your house for a visit. You may also take the chance to gather with them working on for some useful activities, such as gardening small plants and herbs, picking up rubbish, cleaning the house compound, whatever activities imagined that can further help enhance the relationship with the locals.

- To support the future “Baan Kok Riang Agricultural Learning Center”
- To learn from each other among volunteers themselves, and from volunteers to villagers vice versa through “learning by doing” concept
- To build good relationship between volunteers and local people
- To be a part of Baan Kok Riang community
- To let children be familiar with volunteers and learn in international/multi-cultural atmosphere

At the house of the local host.

Baan Kok Riang, Klong Hoy Khong district, Songkhla province, Southern Thailand.

Hat Yai (from Bangkok you can choose to travel by plane, bus or train).

- Participants are responsible for their own travel costs and all personal expenses during free time.
- Participants are responsible for taking care of their own insurance.
- Participants should respect and have willingness to understand other cultures and backgrounds.
- Living conditions will be in Thai style (willingness to adapt and enjoy simple conditions of living).
- Willingness to work and live together, build friendship with local people and other volunteers, let's try to make this world a nice place to live in!
- Participant should have the basic skills/knowledge toward the project they apply for.
- Participant should ask for a visa “Non-Immigrant type”. DaLaa will provide an invitation letter and officially registered paper.

The minimum period of staying is two months.
The fee will be used for living expenses (gas, water, electricity, food) and for materials used in projects/activities. Also some part of the fee will be used to support Thai volunteers and our organization.

The minimum period is 2-month service.
The fee will be used for living expenses (gas, water, electricity, food) and materials used in projects/activities. Some part of the fee will be used to support Thai volunteers and our organization.

8,000 THB per month (approx. 200 Euro), but if you stay over 3 months, from 4th month onward, instead of paying 8,000 THB every month, we reduce the fee to 7,000 THB (approx. 175 Euro) per month.

A 6 months stay volunteer, during months 1 to 3, 8,000 THBx3=24,000 THB, and months 4 to 6, 7,000 THBx3=21,000 THB. Alltogether 45,000 THB/6 months.

The minimum period of stay is a 3 months service.

Kataphusin is the project to build a small autonomous community in the vigorous and generous nature of South Thailand. The way of life has to be sober, simple and spontaneous; to respect the nature in any way. Kataphusin knows that a balanced relation with the nature is an indispensable condition to human well-being. The place, a 5 hectares fruit garden crossed by a small river is waiting for determined volunteers to harvest its fruits and plant the seeds of a harmonious future.

This garden has been started 15 years ago by a Thai-French family, and is now like an oasis of fruits diversity surrounded on a side by dangerous oil palm plantations and on the other side by a big national park and a beautiful waterfall. Jean-Luc, the initiator has always wanted to gather people with the common aim of living simply, according to the nature and create this small autonomous community. With DaLaa organization, we have been joining and sending volunteers to this project since 2009. We’ve been gardening, planting, building and doing activities with local kids at the project.

Most villagers make a living from rubber and palm oil trees. The relationships between people are rather difficult since money, properties and drugs have been taken over solidarity and respect of each others. We do our best to include local kids in our activities but it’s true that our volunteer project is not well understood by the villagers around.

Long term volunteers (over 3 months). Will to lead a way of life according to the nature, take a step back from the modern civilization and use this time for spiritual reflexion. French speakers would make it easier for discussions with the host.

Volunteers will help to take care of the agro-forest and the vegetable garden. This work will include planting seeds, nursing young plants, cutting the grass around young trees, gardening, collecting fruits, repair the tools

We can start again activities on the area with local kids on week-ends or evening (environment, gardening, art and craft, sport… depending on volunteers’ skills). It is the easiest way to get in contact with local people and to share our project aims. Let’s share and improve together our love for nature and others.

We would like to build some small huts to be able to welcome more people in the future.

An important part of the project is to manage smoothly our daily life in community. Getting our food, cleaning, cooking, times to get together, times needed for privacy, different opinions or life visions…, we’ll all have to adapt ourselves.

We can start/continue any other projects according to our aims (Ex: distributing seeds or young trees around)

It seems like 2 or 3 hours of physical work in the garden per day is a good rhythm. It may be more demanding when doing construction work. Don’t worry; you will have a lot of time for yourself. Saturday and Sunday would be the best time for activities with kids. A free day in the week for relax or do personal things would be important too.

We believe healthy food is directly linked to a healthy mind and we will give a strong importance to our alimentation. Fruits will be in a big part of it. One of the most important is banana, easy to grow and nourishing. There are many different species of fruits and vegetables on the land. There are also many coconuts, pineapples. Depending on the season, there are also avocados, durians, jackfruits, rambutans, wild mangos and many others but in fewer quantities. Some trees (all planted by seeds) are not fully grown. They are also missing people to take care of them.
We work also at the vegetable garden so we can get some safe good food from it. We still need to buy some more food from the markets. We will avoid a maximum industrial (packaged) food and no meat.
We will take turn cooking 1 meal a day in evening (rice or potatoes with vegetables, curries, salads, eggs, soups…) and just enjoy fruits any time. Jean-Luc can introduce you to raw food alimentation ( instinct) but you are of course not forced too.

Two small houses (huts) are available for volunteers in the garden (across the river). There is no electricity there. (but there is at the host house) Mosquito nets are provided

We use dry toilets (2 of them on the main house side), natural toilets are also fine since the land is big.
We can shower and wash clothes in the river (bring some natural soap), there is one private shower room at the main house.

The land is on both side of a small river (stream) coming 1km down of Wipawadi beautiful 9 floors waterfall. It is a mountainous area. It brings some freshness (for tropical Thailand) to this place, a lot of rain and many mosquitoes as well. Wong Pack Wenn is a small, Buddhist village of about 50 houses. At the entry, close to the village main intersection, there is the main house (with electricity), where the host family leaves then the land goes down to the river, this part has been planted since several years and trees are well grown. There are a few neighbors too. There is a small bamboo bridge to cross the stream without being wet. Then on the other side, there is an old house and the new gathering hut where volunteers will sleep on. There is no electricity on this side. This area has been planted recently with small fruit trees and need more care. It is going almost 200 meters long and higher to Khao Sok national park border. The place is surrounded by rubber tree plantations.

The climate is tropical, temperature is usually between 20 in the night and 30-35 during the day, high humidity with rain shower often, rather more rain and cooler at the end of the year, it can be kind of oppressing with all the trees around for people coming from “temperate“ countries.

We love the nature and all of it, snakes, scorpions and centipedes and other less dangerous bugs or mosquitoes are sharing the area with us. There are some precautions to take but no reasons to be afraid.

Most of villagers make a living from rubber and oil palm trees. Apart from work, some spend fare amount of time on lotteries and gambling. There are also some small shops and local restaurants in the village. However, tt’s only a few decades that some people are living there. It was the jungle 50 years ago.

Wooden hut by the waterfall stream.

Wipawadi, Surat Thani province, Southern Thailand.

Pun Pin train station

The fee will be used for living expenses (gas, water, electricity, food) and materials used in projects/activities. Some part of the fee will be used to support Thai volunteers and our organization.

8,000 THB per month (approx. 200 Euro), but if you stay over 3 months, from 4th month onward, instead of paying 8,000 THB every month, we reduce the fee to 7,000 THB (approx. 175 Euro) per month.

A 6-month stay volunteer, during month 1-3, 8,000 THBx3=24,000 THB, and month 4-6, 7,000 THBx3=21,000 THB. Altogether 45,000 THB/6 months.

- Participant is responsible for their own travel costs and all personal expenses during free time.
- Participant is responsible for taking care of their own insurance.
- Participant should respect and have willingness to understand other cultures and backgrounds.
- Living conditions will be in Thai style (willingness to adapt and enjoy simple conditions of living).
- Willingness to work and live together, build friendship with local people and other volunteers, let's try to make this world a nice place to live in!
- Participant should have the basic skills/knowledge toward the project they apply for.
- Participant should ask for a visa “Non-Immigrant type”. DaLaa will provide an invitation letter and other officially registered papers.

The minimum period of stay is a 2 months service.

We in DaLaa, were first introduced to this village, Ban Kok Riang, through a recommendation from one of the Hat Yai University clubs called Backpackers. The club is quite active in organizing activities involving environmental conservation, trekking, and initiating activities with the local communities. Some of these activities they did together with the villagers in Baan Kok Riang were planting trees at Pa Dam Watershed Waterfall and also by the roadsides as well as organizing activities with the kids and adults in the village. Whenever they organize projects in the village, DaLaa will be always invited to join. As up until now, it has been going on for almost 8 years and the university club is still keeping in touch with the community in the village and initiated beneficial projects that support the community.

Mr. Suthep Suwankrajang, host and project coordinator, known as Lung Jaeng, has an interest to produce his own organic food. He himself does not have any agricultural background, however, he took the initiative wanting to turn his land properties covering approximately 1 hector of empty land into a place where everyone can learn and experiment on non-chemical agriculture. This has helped generate motivations for the other villagers to follow in their footsteps. The main purpose for this effort is to try to create a learning space functioning sort of as a working model for the surrounding community members, especially for the new generation, to grow healthy organic non-chemically induced rice, vegetables, and fruits. According to Lung Jaeng's observation, our societies nowadays are so used to the convenient way of living and buying everything from the market without realizing that most of the food products sold in market heavily contained dangerous chemicals and pesticides, which would eventually lead to severe health problems. Unfortunately, the project initiator started their own plans, without having much support from anyone else.

Since 3 years, Lung Jaeng started all by himself, growing vegetables and fruit trees such as pineapples, coconuts, mangoes, papayas, aubergines, Chinese lettuce, etc. Moreover, he and his few friends also grow rice for their own families during August-October and harvest during January. Apart from him, there are also other few friends in the same village, Lung Sian, and Lung Chiaw, who have been supporting and coordinating with his initiatives. They always come by for a visit and give Lung Jaeng advice on how to grow vegetables.

DaLaa sees this a meaningful project for us and volunteers to be involved in, as well as taking the opportunity to learn about this highly sustainable self-reliant living, especially the most crucial during the initial time of the project when there are a lot of work to do and things to get improved around. Moreover, it's very important to give them all the help and support that they need in bringing about awareness, and in the meantime build-up collaborations and train apprentices within their own and neighboring communities.

By sending volunteers to work with Lung Jang, DaLaa hopes that we can support him with manpower, energy and skills from the volunteers, and also help him to promote the idea of non-chemical agriculture among the villagers. Since August 2012, several long-term volunteers had participated in the project site, as well as 2 short-term work camps and a few weekend camps were organized there. We also did basic construction such as building toilets and digging out wells.

Considering that this is going to be the initial attempt of the long term project, the volunteers should be able to handle physical hard work, expecting that there will be some construction work involved. Normally, in the morning, you will start work in the vegetable garden around 8 or 9 AM. until 11 a.m. and again during 3 or 4 p.m. until 6.30 p.m. The finishing time can differ each day depending on heat, amount of work that has to be done as well as your own ability and endurance. The work schedule may be decided on daily basis depending on what has been done on the day before and the condition of weather. However, there'll be few hours break during the hottest time of the day. Everyday work will involve nurturing and watering vegetables, plants and fruit trees, collecting vegetables for your own consumption and growing seeds or nursing young plants. During the hot afternoon and at the end of the day, you may have your own free time, or you can take the opportunity together with our project hosts and coordinator to further learning the local language and as for the sharing exchange, teaching them English. Some children may come to your house for a visit. You may also take the chance to gather with them working on for some useful activities, such as gardening small plants and herbs, picking up rubbish, cleaning the house compound. Sometimes, Lung Jaeng may take volunteers to social events in the community, such as on important Buddhist holidays, weddings or funerals in order to get the volunteers to be involved in community events and to enhance the relationship with the locals.

- To support the efforts for this place to be an agricultural learning space for interested people.
- To learn from each other among volunteers themselves, and from volunteers to villagers vice versa through "learning by doing" concept.
- To build good relationship between volunteers and local people.
- To be a part of Baan Kok Riang community.
- To let children be familiar with volunteers and learn in international/multi-cultural atmosphere.

shared bamboo huts in the project host's compound.

Baan Kok Riang, Klong Hoy Khong district, Songkhla province, Southern Thailand.

Hat Yai (from Bangkok you can choose to travel by plane, bus or train).

The fee will be used for living expenses (gas, water, electricity, food) and materials used in projects/activities. Some part of the fee will be used to support Thai volunteers and our organization.

8,000 THB per month (approx. 200 Euro), but if you stay over 3 months, from 4th month onward, instead of paying 8,000 THB every month, we reduce the fee to 7,000 THB (approx. 175 Euro) per month.

A 6-month stay volunteer, during month 1-3, 8,000 THBx3=24,000 THB, and month 4-6, 7,000 THBx3=21,000 THB. Altogether 45,000 THB/6 months.

- Participant is responsible for their own travel costs and all personal expenses during free time.
- Participant is responsible for taking care of their own insurance.
- Participant should respect and have willingness to understand other cultures and backgrounds.
- Living conditions will be in Thai style (willingness to adapt and enjoy simple conditions of living).
- Willingness to work and live together, build friendship with local people and other volunteers, let's try to make this world a nice place to live in!
- Participant should have the basic skills/knowledge toward the project they apply for.
- Participant should ask for a visa "Non-Immigrant type". DaLaa will provide an invitation letter and other officially registered papers.

Roy Wan Pan Pba project is located not far from a small village called Kuan Mai Bong (hill of timber). It’s a Buddhist village situated in a remote area of Cha-uat district of Nakorn Sri Tammarat province, Southern Thailand. Population of the village consists of approx. 720 people (212 homes). Most villagers make a living on their property such as rubber plantation and fruit orchard. Some others are temporary workers earning wages from occasional hire.

The project was started from nothing but motivation and solidarity in March 2011 by the initiatives of a local environmental activist Pi Ju ( Mr Surasak Yentua)along with support of Kuan Mai Bong villagers and DaLaa pilot volunteers. Its objective is to focus on participants (kids, volunteers, and locals) to be aware of importance of staying self-sufficient in their environment and to respect it as a vital part of their life. This atmosphere is the basic key of the site that everyone can feel and learn from. Volunteers are working/learning in the week and spreading their experience/feelings with local kids who are coming on Saturdays. We believe the growing temptation of parents to send their kids to study in the city (for “better education”) and the dream of some young locals to leave their village for the consumption world can be refrained by organizing activities, learning and sharing with volunteers from outside. Volunteers are at the same time students and actors of the project.

Since 2011, Pi Ju has supervised this project to create a kind of model of sustainable garden. Thanks to great help from the locals and volunteers that they managed to build most facilities to welcome people to live and visit. There is now adequate availability of food from the vegetables garden, and fruit trees which already planted.

Food Autonomy is indeed vital to man and Alternative Education is important as well as to give kids the possibility to learn some basic skills of life that are often neglected at regular schools.

The project site is located in a mountainous village of Ban Tad Mountain Range. It is approx. 16 kilometers far from the main road reaching up to the mountain. It is surrounded by rubber plantation, fruit orchards and scattered settlement of villagers’ homes. The project is less than a kilometer from the small village center.

For your entire stay, you’ll live with Pi Ju’s family. They are a father (Pi Ju), a mother named Pi Nong and their little son named Roy Wan. You know now where the project’s name is derived from

“It is to build and run this project together”.
There is still some construction work to be built on/repaired in the project area. As part of the team, volunteers share great support to the local project to help keep the school and its landscape in good order. They are given responsibility to take care of vegetable garden, mushroom shed, compost making, tree nursery and seeds collection. One of the school plans concerning the campaign of agricultural self-sufficiency is that people need no buying food from a market but to grow or to raise whatever edible and make it into meals for their families.

On Saturdays, village kids gather at the project site to do activities with volunteers. Volunteers decide together how to organize the Saturday’s activities. The opportunities are endless: teaching different subjects such as basic English, art, agriculture, games. The kids vary in age (it can be from 6 to 20). This is never a problem. They like to participate in activities together. If you know any activities worth arranging for the kids from your country or any teaching ideas, please bring supplies you may need with you.

In everyday life, apart from main tasks, you are also expected to help with the family’s daily tasks which are helping preparing meals for family members, washing dishes, watering plants in dry season, and keeping the house area, kitchen, coffee-tea table, bathrooms and restrooms tidy and clean. Moreover, you can spend some time after work with villagers in the village when you’re not very tired from your main tasks.

Drinking habit of male villagers -
You may be surprised to see men gather up for their after-work drinking party. After the exhausting day from gardening work, drinking is what they normally enjoy. It’s a local habit, way of community lifestyle.

From mid-March till mid-May and October’s time, it’s school holidays throughout Thailand. It means that you can create more activities with local kids at the project site.

Happening yearly from October to December, gardening work and other activities may be reduced because of the monsoon season (lots of rain). However, the project will still open for application. Volunteers coming during this period should acknowledge that they will have a lot of time “indoors”, here we would rather say “under roofs”.

- To support Roy Wan Pan Pba project.
- To experience and see the importance of “Food Autonomy and Alternative Education”.
- To build good relationship between volunteers and local people.
- To let children be familiar with volunteers and learn in international/multi-cultural atmosphere.

Huts shared with other volunteers.

Cha-uat district, Nakorn Sri Tammarat province, Southern Thailand.

Hat Yai (from Bangkok you can choose to travel by plane, bus or train).

The minimum period is a 2 months service.

The fee will be used for living expenses (gas, water, electricity, food) and materials used in projects/activities. Some part of the fee will be used to support Thai volunteers and our organization.

8,000 THB per month (approx. 200 Euro). If you stay over 3 months, from the 4th month onwards, instead of paying 8,000 THB every month, we reduce the fee to 7,000 THB (approx. 175 Euro) per month.

A 6-month stay volunteer, during months 1-3, 8,000 THBx3=24,000 THB, and months 4-6, 7,000 THBx3=21,000 THB. Altogether 45,000 THB/6 months.

- Participants are responsible for their own travel costs and all personal expenses during free time.
- Participants are responsible for taking care of their own insurance.
Participants should respect and have willingness to understand other cultures and backgrounds.
- Living conditions will be in Thai style (willingness to adapt and enjoy simple conditions of living).
- Willingness to work and live together, build friendships with local people and other volunteers - let's try to make this world a nice place to live in!
- Participants should have basic skills/knowledge towards the project they apply for.
- Participants should ask for a visa “Non-Immigrant type”. DaLaa will provide an invitation letter and other officially registered papers.

We in DaLaa, were first introduced to this village, Ban Kok Riang, through a recommendation from one of the Hat Yai University clubs called Backpackers. The club is quite active in organizing activities involving environmental conservation, trekking, and initiating activities with the local communities. Some of these activities they did together with the villagers in Baan Kok Riang were planting trees at Pa Dam Watershed Waterfall and also by the roadsides as well as organizing activities with the kids and adults in the village. Whenever they organize projects in the village, DaLaa will be always invited to join. As up until now, it has been going on for almost 8 years and the university club is still keeping in touch with the community in the village and initiated beneficial projects that support the community.

Mr. Suthep Suwankrajang, host and project coordinator, known as Lung Jaeng, has an interest to produce his own organic food. He himself does not have any agricultural background, however, he took the initiative wanting to turn his land properties covering approximately 1 hector of empty land into a place where everyone can learn and experiment on non-chemical agriculture. The main purpose for this effort is to try to create a learning space functioning sort of as a working model for the surrounding community members, especially for the new generation, to grow healthy organic, non-chemically induced rice, vegetables, and fruits. According to Lung Jaeng’s observation, our societies nowadays are so used to the convenient way of living and buying everything from the market without realizing that most of the food products sold in market heavily contained dangerous chemicals and pesticides, which would eventually lead to severe health problems. Unfortunately, the project initiator started their own plans, without having much support from anyone else.

Since 4 years, Lung Jaeng started all by himself, growing vegetables and fruit trees such as pineapples, coconuts, mangoes, papayas, aubergines, Chinese lettuce, etc. Moreover, he and his few friends also grow rice for their own families and volunteer project during August-October and harvest during January-February. Apart from him, there are also other few friends in the same village, Lung Sian, and Lung Chiaw, who have been supporting and coordinating with his initiatives. They always come by for a visit and give Lung Jaeng advice on how to grow vegetables.

DaLaa sees this a meaningful project for us and volunteers to be involved in, as well as taking the opportunity to learn about this highly sustainable self-reliant living, especially the most crucial during the initial time of the project when there are a lot of work to do and things to get improved around. Moreover, it’s very important to give them all the help and support that they need in bringing about awareness, and in the meantime build-up collaborations and train apprentices within their own and neighboring communities.

By sending volunteers to work with Lung Jang, DaLaa hopes that we can support him with manpower, energy and skills from the volunteers, and also help him to promote the idea of non-chemical agriculture among the villagers. Since August 2012, several long-term volunteers participated in the project site, as well as 2 short-term work camps and a few weekend camps were organized there. We also did basic construction such as building toilets and digging out wells at the garden or some construction in the house compound for volunteers.

Considering that this is going to be the initial attempt of the long term project, the volunteers should be able to handle physical hard work, expecting that there will be some construction work involved. Normally, in the morning, you will start work in the vegetable garden around 8 or 9 a.m. until 11 a.m. and again during 3 or 4 p.m. until 6.30 p.m. The work time can differ each day depending on heat, amount of work that has to be done as well as your own ability and endurance. The work schedule may be decided on daily basis depending on what has been done on the day before and the condition of weather. However, there’ll be few hours break during the hottest time of the day. Everyday work will involve nurturing and watering vegetables, plants and fruit trees, collecting vegetables for your own consumption and growing seeds or nursing young plants. During the hot afternoon and at the end of the day, you may have your own free time, or you can take the opportunity together with our project hosts and coordinator to further learning the local language. Sometimes, Lung Jaeng may take volunteers to social events in the community, such as on important Buddhist holidays, weddings or funerals in order to get the volunteers to be involved in community events and to enhance the relationship with the locals.

Who will be working closely with you are Lung Jaeng and his son. Apart from them, DaLaa coordinator and staff may visit regularly during the weekdays or on the weekends. Bringing some Thai phrase books with you can be useful for communication with the project hosts and the villagers during your stay.

- To support the efforts for this place to be an agricultural learning space for interested people.
- To learn from each other among volunteers themselves, and from volunteers to villagers vice versa through “learning by doing” concept.
- To build good relationship between volunteers and local people.
- To be a part of Baan Kok Riang community.

shared bamboo huts in the project host’s compound .

Baan Kok Riang, Klong Hoy Khong district, Songkhla province, Southern Thailand.

Hat Yai (from Bangkok you can choose to travel by plane, bus or train).

The minimum period is a 2 months service.

The fee will be used for living expenses (gas, water, electricity, food) and materials used in projects/activities. Some part of the fee will be used to support Thai volunteers and our organization.

8,000 THB per month (approx. 200 Euro). If you stay over 3 months, from the 4th month onwards, instead of paying 8,000 THB every month, we reduce the fee to 7,000 THB (approx. 175 Euro) per month.

A 6-month stay volunteer, during months 1-3, 8,000 THBx3=24,000 THB, and months 4-6, 7,000 THBx3=21,000 THB. Altogether 45,000 THB/6 months.

- Participants are responsible for their own travel costs and all personal expenses during free time.
- Participants are responsible for taking care of their own insurance.
- Participants should respect and have willingness to understand other cultures and backgrounds.
- Living conditions will be in Thai style (willingness to adapt and enjoy simple conditions of living).
- Willingness to work and live together, build friendships with local people and other volunteers - let's try to make this world a nice place to live in!
- Participants should have basic skills/knowledge towards the project they apply for.
- Participants should ask for a visa “Non-Immigrant type”. DaLaa will provide an invitation letter and other officially registered papers.

Baan Ta Yang is a Muslim village located a few kilometers away from the coastline of Andaman Sea in Satun province, Southern Thailand. It is geologically an island in which it is connected by the 2 bridges leading to La Ngu town, district of Satun province. Villagers’ occupation is mainly individual labor making a living on their rich natural resources that is river palm tree of which its particular leaf, “Bai Jaak” (Thai name), is well-known for making roofs, handicraft like baskets and tobacco roll. Its landscape and quality of soil in general are really suitably appropriate to this kind of tree, and the products processed are of good quality. The second main occupation of the villagers is fishery industries as the village is surrounded by river leading to the Andaman Sea.

Bang Leem is one of Baan Ta Yang villagers and he is an initiator of this project. He believes that the village and children’s homes should be a principal place to learn about life. However, nowadays, the community is facing difficulties to manage this role as some parents start to think that to acquire better education for their children is to send them away to schools in town including private ones that intuition fees are so costly.

To be noticed, this project this year 2014 has been firstly commenced as one of our new ‘DaLaa long-term project sites”. Pilot volunteers are strongly welcome but we would inform they should be told of occasional absence of responsible DaLaa project coordinator as he also has responsibilities in the office. However, you will have Bang Leem, he's always there.

the first idea of Bang Leem is to give opportunities to local kids to learn English. He sees it an important tool for their future. Percentage of local kids’ language abilities is very low. They only know very basic words, few conversations like “How are you? “I am fine” “Thank you and you?” even if their verbal pronunciation is not really right. It reflects hard situations why quality of kids’ education in rural areas is still undeveloped. Bang Leem is now taking this project very seriously and wish that international volunteers can help support him. Therefore, his place will be offered a place where kids can come in which activities will be organized for the.

this would literally go along with this proverb “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. By embedding yourself as a long-term volunteer being part of the village life, to solve your curiosity about our Thai culture though its Muslim community, we hope by living in the community of Baan Ta Yang, you will get deeply into our traditions that we live, learn and work together!

Around his area, there’s a compact land that volunteers can grow their own vegetables. Non-chemical, self-sustainable agriculture is one of the aims the host and villagers are taking into consideration. And it also is our aim to spread this action “food autonomy”.

- Supporting ideas of the project host with benefits towards better education of the village kids.
- Locals become able to communicate in English.
- Preserving the local traditions and wisdom.
- Long-lasting learning exchange between villagers, their children and international volunteers.
- Acknowledging importance of sustainable agriculture.
- Understanding the importance of the village community life.

A big hut shared with other volunteers.

Baan Ta Yang village, La Ngu, Satun province, Southern Thailand.

Hat Yai (from Bangkok you can choose to travel by plane, bus or train).

The minimum period is a 2 months service.

The fee will be used for living expenses (gas, water, electricity, food) and materials used in projects/activities. Some part of the fee will be used to support Thai volunteers and our organization.

8,000 THB per month (approx. 200 Euro). If you stay over 3 months, from the 4th month onwards, instead of paying 8,000 THB every month, we reduce the fee to 7,000 THB (approx. 175 Euro) per month.

A 6-month stay volunteer, during months 1-3, 8,000 THBx3=24,000 THB, and months 4-6, 7,000 THBx3=21,000 THB. Altogether 45,000 THB/6 months.

- Participants are responsible for their own travel costs and all personal expenses during free time.
- Participants are responsible for taking care of their own insurance.
- Participants should respect and have willingness to understand other cultures and backgrounds.
- Living conditions will be in Thai style (willingness to adapt and enjoy simple conditions of living).
- Willingness to work and live together, build friendships with local people and other volunteers - let's try to make this world a nice place to live in!
- Participants should have basic skills/knowledge towards the project they apply for.
- Participants should ask for a visa “Non-Immigrant type”. DaLaa will provide an invitation letter and other officially registered papers.