Helping hands

A student from Chulalongkorn University helps build a children’s playground.

Chilling out on the beach is one way of spending school breaks. Too boring? Then how about helping residents of Sakon Nakhon province with indigo design, teaching English in Ayutthaya or designing the landscape for community-based tourism?

All of these activities and more are available during the upcoming holidays through a new Tourism Authority of Thailand programme called "Voluntourism" that's aimed at college students and young travellers alike.

Voluntourism, a new type of tourism, is becoming popular with young Westerners keen to who leave their homes behind and spend the summers working with local communities or nonprofit organisations. Volunteer jobs vary from building children's playgrounds to observing sea turtles.

"Instead of sticking around tourist attractions, volunteer travellers join 'work' camps and help the locals on jobs that the communities cannot do by themselves," says TAT Deputy Governor Wansadej Thawornsuk. "While working in a volunteer camp, guests are able to travel around and learn about arts and culture from the host communities."

The give-and-take experience, and not the work, is the most important aspect of the volunteer holiday.

Four short camps are to being held in Thailand's Northeast and Central region in the next school holidays, paving the way for this new travel trend.

In the northeastern province of Sakon Nakhon, residents of Baan Tham Tao village offer volunteer travellers work on indigo farms and in cloth design. "All we have are the indigo plants plus local wisdom on indigo dyeing," says village head-woman Somkhid Phromchrak. "We need young people with strong sense of design to make our products trendier and more stylish."

No sense of design? No problem. There's still plenty of work to do in Baan Tham Tao with its 103 acres of farms planted with indigofera.

"We want the village to be more of a tourist destination, so any fresh ideas to put Baan Tham Tao on the map are welcome," says Somkhid.

In Khong Ta Khian, Ayutthaya province, English teachers and landscape designers will be warmly welcomed, as the old riverside community is planning to promote itself as a weekend destination.

"Khlong Ta Khian is an old community where Buddhists and Muslims have been happily coexisting on both sides of the canals for generations," says district chief Khitaphid Siriphuban. "With a charming marketplace, as well as temples and mosques standing side by side, the village has the potential to become a weekend destination.

But the locals don't know where and how to start and they hope that volunteers with a good sense of landscape design can help in making the community more attractive. English teachers are needed to organise classes in basic communication skills.

The working camps in Sakon Nakhon and Ayutthaya will be held in next month, with two more volunteer camps being organised in Chumphon and Uthai Thani in October.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand is now working with colleges and universities in identifying volunteers for the pilot camps.

"TAT will introduce the volunteer camps to young travellers via the universities," explains Arunsri Srimethanont, director of the TAT's NorthEastern Region. "After that, we'll conduct interviews to match the volunteers to the needs of the locals."