Siam City Cement, the country's second-largest cement manufacturer, plans to construct three "green" buildings at Border Patrol Police schools this year.
It is hoped the plan will promote energy-conservation awareness among the schools' students and open up career opportunities for vocational students.
The project, initiated this year, is part of Siam City Cement's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme.
Kantanit Sukontasap, vice president for group communication, said last week that buildings at Border Patrol Police schools in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Prachuap Kiri Khan provinces would be rebuilt as "green", or environmentally friendly, structures. The buildings in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai will be completed before the first semester of this year, Kantanit said.
Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn told the company's executives that it would be good if the company had a project to give vocational students a chance to be trained. Siam City Cement created the green school-building project, which aims to reconstruct Border Patrol Police schools nationwide. The company expects the project to last for at least three years.
He said the company had approached the Association of Siamese Architects (ASA), under Royal patronage, to design the new school buildings under the green concept, which will help save energy.
ASA has designed the school buildings to be open to sunshine and wind, and to use building materials that reduce heat so as to lower consumption of electricity from light bulbs and fans, said Natreudee Katintes, Siam City Cement's CSR officer, who is in charge of the project.
She said the company would reconstruct a dormitory at the school in Chiang Mai, a building for classes in Chiang Rai, and a building for teaching handicrafts in Prachuap Kiri Khan.
She added that the Chao Pho Luang Uphathum 4 School (under His Majesty the King's patronage) in Chiang Rai, located near the Doi Mae Salong Mountain roughly 80 kilometres from the city and only 1 kilometre from the Burmese border, was a school for hill tribe students. This is the most remote school at which the company will construct a building this year.
Pol Capt Thongsuk Wongkhati, headmaster of the Border Patrol Police school in Chiang Rai, which is located 1,312 feet above sea level, said His Majesty donated Bt30,000 to build the school in 1970. The structure to be built by Siam City Cement - the first new building at the school since then - was formerly a classroom for pre-school and Prathom 1 hill tribe students. All teachers at the school are Border Patrol officers.
Kantanit said Siam City Cement would continue to emphasise its CSR projects. The company has hired ERM Co to layout a sustainable-development plan to help it in this effort.
"To organise projects for society is part of our Growing Green Together policy, reflecting that our business from now on will focus on three dimensions: business, environment and society. We are moving forward and emphasising these projects," he said.
