Project

Enhancing Civil Society Organisations’ Capacities in Response to COVID-19 in Thailand- Nationwide Intervention (EU COVID-19 Response and Recovery in Thailand – Nationwide Intervention)

Background 

ActionAid International (Thailand) Foundation has been responding to the challenges that the most marginalised communities have been facing since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in Thailand, along with project co-applicants Bio Thai Foundation (BTF), Chumchonthai Foundation (CTF) and Foundation for Labour and Employment Promotion (FLEP). We have come together to respond to a range communities and their specific needs for relief, recovery and possible resilience, namely stateless people residing across the borders of Thailand and Myanmar, migrant working groups from Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia who couldn’t leave Thailand when the lockdown was announced, informal sector workers in urban areas, poor communities in semi-industrial and rural areas, rural poor including smallholder farmers and ethnic minority groups. We have been providing relief to the vulnerable communities. This action ramps up the relief efforts, followed by recovery and possible resilience in the medium term of two years. The co-applicants and ActionAid International (Thailand) Foundation collaborated to prepare the action design. Women and children, people with disability and elderly people amongst all targeted communities will be the primary focus for the action.

Locations

28 provinces in 5 regions – Central, North, South, East and North East

Timeframe

July 2020 – July 2022 (24 months). This considers the possibility of subsequent waves of COVID-19, time taken to gradually open the economy and support needed for communities to rejoin the workforce.

Objectives

    • Overall objective:  To increase the participation of Thai civil society organisations (CSOs) working with the most vulnerable communities in Thailand in preventing, addressing, and mitigating risks and vulnerabilities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. 
    • Specific objective: To support and strengthen the capacity and engagement of Thai CSOs in response, recovery and building resilience of the most vulnerable communities, and to mitigate the health and socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

โครงการอียูรับมือโควิด EU COVID-19 Response and Recovery in Thailand – Nationwide Intervention

Target groups

    • Vulnerable communities affected by COVID-19 including: migrant working groups from adjacent countries – Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos; informal sector workers in primarily urban locations; ethnic minorities (Chao Le); stateless communities; urban poor communities; rural poor communities including smallholder farmers; and schools and community centers with 12,970 children (including 5,780 girl children). The approximate number of this target group is 387,038 individuals.
    • Co-applicants – Bio Thai Foundation, Chumchonthai Foundation, Foundation for Labour and Employment Promotion – and seven third-party grantees.
    • Government officials from the Ministries of Labour, Social Development and Human Security, Agriculture and Cooperatives, Interior, and Finance; and local government officials.

Final beneficiaries

9,500,000 people reached through advocacy and relief outreach programmes.

Expected outputs

    • Provision of relief to the most marginalised communities: CSOs support the immediate relief and access to essential public services including health care systems and access to information for vulnerable communities affected by COVID-19.
    • Socio-economic recovery and rehabilitation: CSOs support and advocate towards local authorities and other government authorities for social security and sustainable and inclusive socio-economic measures to assist the most vulnerable communities in Thailand to help in their recovery to recover and rehabilitate from the impacts of COVID-19.  
    • Building resilience and preparedness of vulnerable communities: CSOs strengthen preparedness and resilience of communities and local authorities to help them withstand future health, social and socio-economic crises. 

Main actions

    • Food support, temporary shelter, access to health services, personal protective equipment, relief kits for target populations (with focus on women and children among them), legal assistance for migrants, campaigns on information related to COVID-19.  
    • Skills development and building resilient livelihoods for target vulnerable communities, supplementing food needs through innovative solutions, policy advocacy on social security, and occupational health and safety training.
    • Pilot green communities: set up community product exchange system and resilience building for the target communities. 

โครงการอียูรับมือโควิด EU COVID-19 Response and Recovery in Thailand – Nationwide Intervention

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