“Before I learned ICT skills, I felt like I was living my life stuck in a box,” says Sarit “Na Noy” Tipnangrongn, referring to the confines of her circumstances growing up poor in Buriram, one of Thailand’s most impoverished and drought-plagued provinces. “Now I can help people and learn about those who live outside the village and communicate with them without seeing their faces.”
Na Noy’s ability to break out of her “box” and help people who feel similarly trapped – in her province and others – came only after many years of struggling.
Na Noy, now 54, grew up in a small, poor farming family in a smallBuriram village. Her parents, like many in the area, could only afford to pay for her to attend their small village school up until Grade 4. Then it was time to help the family by working on the farm. Attempting to eke out a subsistence living as a farmer was the prospect that stretched ahead of her for the rest of her life.
That changed some 20 years ago when Na Noy’s interest was piqued by an organization offering an IT course that specifically targeted farmers.
C C D K M is featured on UNESCO Bangkok. For further info. about C C D K M ‘s work in Buriram read here:
ICT helps farmer sow seeds of hope in rural Thailand