I recently attended the annual Round Square international conference in Thailand along with six LCC student-delegates. This international association of 80 schools from across the globe continues to focus on key values and IDEALS we promote regularly in our school (Internationalism, Democracy, Environmentalism, Adventure, Leadership, Service). Active learning experiences such as the annual international conference connect students, teachers and administrators and open eyes to major issues and challenges far from home. In addition to a host of excellent keynote speakers, discussion groups and cultural activities, I had the opportunity to participate in two separate service days, including a memorable day connecting with young children and babies at a Thai orphanage run by the Catholic church.
Although there is much to reflect on from this eye-opening experience, I will share my impressions of a single speaker. Mr. Machai Viravaidya is an impressive and humorous Thai man who has led an incredibly accomplished life of service and initiative, mostly dedicated to improving public health at the broadest level in Thailand. Known as Thailand’s “Condom King,” Mr. Viravaidya has spent decades distributing condoms across the country—years before it was being done widely in most countries. This was a big deal in Thailand as it is a very conservative and traditional country. He made the topic of family planning fun, distributing free board games which educated people, giving taxi drivers and police thousands of condoms to distribute to the general public and holding an annual condom blowing championship. He also started a chain of restaurants called “Cabbages and Condoms,” hoping that condoms would some day be as common as cabbages. He joked with student delegates at our conference to remember that condoms aren’t dangerous, they are what he calls useful “weapons of mass protection.”
As the founder of PDA, Thailand’s largest non-profit development association, Machai Viravaidya has played a key role in developing Thailand’s immensely successful family planning initiatives. This has led to one of the fastest reductions in birth rate anywhere in the world—falling from an annual increase of over 3% in the mid 1970’s to merely half of one percent today. During that time the average number of births per woman in Thailand fell from seven babies to less than two.
Mr. Viravaidya has also been instrumental in building Thailand’s comprehensive national HIV/AIDS prevention policies, radically reducing new HIV infections. In 2005 the World Bank estimates that these prevention measures helped save nearly 8 million lives and saved the Thai government over $18 billion in treatment costs alone. Amazing achievements resulting from one man’s vision and determination!
For his service toward improving Thailand’s public health, Mr Viravaidya has received many major awards, including the United Nations Gold Peace Medal and was acclaimed by Time Magazine as one of “Asia’s modern heroes.” Most recently he was recipient of the Bill & Melinda Gates Global Health Award and a prize called the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, with each prize having a value of $ 1 million—significant funds that he immediately put back to work fighting public health issues in Thailand.
Despite this success in family planning and fighting the spread of HIV, Mr. Viravaidya has not taken time to rest. Now he has turned to education, poverty reduction, and the promotion of creative solutions to complex problems in his country. He sees education as the key to success and has started a school called the “Mechai Pattana Bamboo School” which boasts the world’s largest geodesic bamboo dome (30 meters across), a climate change centre, a design and innovation centre, a democracy education centre, and what he calls a “Barefoot MBA and Philanthropy Academy” dedicated to teaching young Thai villagers how to make money and how to give it away. The students designed their own uniform, they sit on hiring committees for the selection of teachers, and there are no textbooks, just the Internet.
It was impressive to meet Mr. Machai Viravaidya personally and hear him speak. He is a global leader, an innovator and someone whose life motto could very well be “Non Nobis Solum.” His final message to his audience in Thailand was simple yet profound….. “If the educated and the wealthy don’t help with the world’s many problems, then who’s going to help? Go out and do something decent.” That’s a mantra we all should follow.
Check out his organization’s web site at: www.mechaifoundation.org –Chris Shannon, Headmaster
