Hope for the southern poor

Things looking up in place that missed out on Thaksin handouts 

Don Pathan
Ban Ayamu, Narathiwat

Ibrahim Arong and his wife Faiza have four children and no home to call their own. They tap rubber in this highland area where Communist insurgents and Malay separatists used to roam some two decades ago. The couple makes about Bt200 a day - after the owner takes his cut.

Their eldest daughter was just sent to Narathiwat where she is living with a relative while taking a one-year nursing assistance course.

"They said the tuition is free and that employment is guaranteed upon graduation," said Faiza, trying hard to put on a positive face amid great uncertainties about their future.

The family will have to do without one helping hand, but said it's a risk worth taking if they want to get out of this cycle of poverty. As it is, the couple don't have much. A small, run-down wooden hut with a shabby roof is pretty much all they have - and that's sitting on somebody else's property.

The difficulties facing Ibrahim and Faiza are not unique. In fact, there are many families like them - poor, landless, working hard to make ends meet - and hoping that their children will have a better life.

But the people in Ban Ayamu are different. What it lacks in material assets, the community makes up in spirit.

About three years ago, with the help of Hama Mayunu, a member of a non-governmental organisation from Narathiwat that deals with community development, together with a local imam, Mohammed Muyeedin Karee, about 150 households of this highland community decided to come together and pool their money and resources.

What started off as a small cattle fund soon evolved into a pool of cash that enabled people like Ibrahim and Faiza to use it. They withdrew Bt3,000 for their daughter's uniform at the nursing school.

A small grant from a Kuwaiti non-governmental organisation helped build a mosque and a community centre that has been used as a kind of a town hall for local residents to come together.

Less than a kilometre from the mosque is 40 rai of land that will be divided up for 40 landless families. Couples like Ibrahim and Faiza are high on the waiting list and are likely to be the first family to move there when the logistics are in place, said imam Muyeedin.

The community is currently negotiating with the Community Organisation Development Institute (Codi), a government-funded private agency, to provide a 15-year interest free loan that would be managed collectively by the residents.

"Historically, assistance from the government tends to be in the form of give-aways and not much in the form of capacity-building at the local level," Hama said. "But our project is different. We believe the villagers can and should manage their own affairs."

During the Thaksin Administration, community development schemes were mainly quick cash thrown at villages. The initiatives were popular in the rural areas and succeeded in securing votes for the Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai Party. But little came in the form of productivity as the money went on personal use.

Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise, but villagers at Ban Ayamu missed out on Thaksin's million-baht and other populist schemes as they didn't have legal status as none of the residents have land titles - even though most have been here for more than two decades.

Besides missing out on Thaksin's easy money, the daily violence in the three southernmost provinces has brought them closer together, said Muyeedin. The community also linked up with other communities in the same predicament. One such community, Kalae Tapae, a congested coastal fishing port in Narathiwat has been trying for years to secure land deeds from the government.

Residents here say their plight and demands for necessities such as clean water had been long overlooked until two years ago, when they formed a community organisation that began to attract the attention of local politicians, as well as Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont who visited the place in late August.

Hama said local politicians have been trying to tap into the network of such communities for support.

But the community is keeping them at bay because no one wants their hands tied with a political commitment, said Muydeein, the de facto leader who never seems to run out of ideas, especially for young men whom he sees as being vulnerable as they struggle to find their place in the local society.

If it's not the social ills, said Muydeein, then it's the insurgency.

But Saheh Salaemae, 22, who just walked in with a bag of ice and soda for this month's meeting, offers a glimpse of hope.

"This is our chairman of the village fund," Muyeedin said. "Give a young man that kind of responsibility and he will grow up real quick."

Don Pathan
The Nation