Project WIN: Grassroots Partnerships for Thailand

This is inside one of the mushroom barns at the big farm. The lady is harvesting. We drove to the factory to see the magic. There, expert cultivators stir a special sterilized compost, a different recipe for each type of mushroom. They carefully pour the mixture into strong plastic bags, then inoculate it with spores and seal the bag tightly.  All the bags are dated and you can order ones that will begin to produce when you want them to. If you'd like to know more about mushroom farming, here's a great short film on mushroom growing in Thailand. It shows how people could change from poaching to farming. Just click on the title:    Five Minute Film on Sustainable Mushroom Farming . This village is high in the mountains and very beautiful. At the factory we bought 400 bags for about 25 cents each. We loaded them into on old pickup truck, along with about six volunteers and drove a couple of hours to the mountain village.  It's a little hard to get to...

The tiny village, high in the mountains above Chaing Dao, gets chilly this time of year, as low as 2 degrees on the coldest nights. Blankets were in short supply.  By chance, Project WIN had just received a big shipment of blankets given by assorted airlines -- all colors and sizes. The next weekend volunteers hauled a load of blankets to the village, and as usual, made the final three kilometers in a special four-wheel drive owned by the village.   This is a Karen village, with ethnic hilltribe people who live mostly along the Thai-Burma border, and who retain their language and customs. There are about a million in Thailand.  The village is new to Project WIN and Project Protein, but the people have embraced it wholeheartedly.  Every member of the village turns out to help when volunteers arrive, and most adults wear tradtional clothing in honor of the visitors. Last week, villagers and volunteers worked to create the first big batch of organic fertili...

As the weather changes at Khun Sap, the chicken barn needs to be completed to protect the growing fryers from the chill. The whole village pitched in to help the volunteer carpenters from Project WIN. Last weekend it was finally fully restored. In the picture below you can see the fast-growing chickens.  Just weeks ago they were tiny chicks brought by the volunteers from Chiang Mai. A fter the chicken barn was done, Project WIN volunteers turned to the other Project Protein installations.  Now there are more mushrooms in the "mushroom hotel," a fresh batch of organic fertilizer has been mixed for the vegetables, and 100 new chicks are on the way.  The children have been taking care of all phases of the project, including the fish pond, and they have begun to get excited about Children's Day, even though it isn't until January. The entire project is thanks to the hard work of local volunteers, mostly university students, supported by an initial grant f...

As the weather changes at Khun Sap, the chicken barn needs to be completed to protect the growing fryers from the chill. The whole village pitched in to help the volunteer carpenters from Project WIN. Last weekend it was finally fully restored. In the picture below you can see the fast-growing chickens.  Just weeks ago they were tiny chicks brought by the volunteers from Chiang Mai. A fter the chicken barn was done, Project WIN volunteers turned to the other Project Protein installations.  Now there are more mushrooms in the "mushroom hotel," a fresh batch of organic fertilizer has been mixed for the vegetables, and 100 new chicks are on the way.  The children have been taking care of all phases of the project, including the fish pond, and they have begun to get excited about Children's Day, even though it isn't until January. The entire project is thanks to the hard work of local volunteers, mostly university students, supported by an initial grant f...

The convoy was a silver van followed by two motorbikes that would be needed later. They took the good highway two hours north of Chiang Mai to the Chiang Dao district, home of the world famous caves.  They turned off the main road and headed up to a village of Baan Maekang Sai -- the Village on the Left Bank of the Maekang  (not the mighty Maekong, far to the North). They stopped three kilometers short of the village and parked the van.  The motorbikes make several slow trips up the muddy, too-steep road, and when they arrived they saw this glorious view Project Vin coordinator and his student volunteers were there to survey the village as a possible site for Project Protein #4. This village represents a fresh frontier for the Project. It's the first village with a significantly cooler microclimate than usual (2-7 degrees in the cold season.  It's remote, and it's very small. In Maekang Sai there are only 24 families, all indigenous Karen p...

P roject WIN has been working in the beautiful Hmong village of Khun Sab. The road from Chiang Mai is steep and scary so it takes two hours to get there. Project Protein is in the early stages, as Mae Vak and Khun Lao were a couple of years ago.  Volunteers have already built and established the concrete fishpond with 1000 baby fish there, thanks to the British Women of Bangkok. Those fish are now six times their original size and they'll will be ready for harvest early next year. As in other villages, fish are the first of the new project components.  Last weekend brought a small crew to Khun Sab to rebuild a big and badly deteriorating chicken house. Volunteers from Maejo worked all day doing carpentry and electrical work to make the place ready for the 101 baby chicks they brought.  Thanks to generous friends who bought supplies and vendors who helped, they had everything they needed to start: plenty of chicken feed, feeders, watering tank, and lights th...

Yesterday 1000 tiny silver barb fish arrived, along with a VIP from Bangkok.  Gale Bailey MBE was there representing the British Women's Group of Bangkok, who recently gave their second generous gift to Project WIN.  Look at the previous story. You'll see volunteers finishing the  new concrete pond at Khun Sap. Khun Sap is a small village of Kariang (Karen) hill tribe people. They are proud of their 21-student kindergarten and primary school.  Under the supervision of their teachers and parents, the children will learn the best methods for raising fish to provide needed protein for the whole village.   Introducing fish for the first time was a big event for the students. Learning by Doing, they'll care for the fish until they are the size of a big man's hand, ready to eat.  In collaboration with village elders, Project WIN volunteers plan to add quarters for chickens, a vegetable garden at the school and a "mushroom hotel." ...