Year: 2021

Although society is becoming more open, understanding and accepting of gender diversity, however the problem of gender inequality still does exist.

Youth, people of new generation and student at Thammasat University, therefore established a social driving group under the name of “TU Changemaker” hoping to foster changes, especially on sexual harassment and gender equality.

Mr. Siwakorn Tassanasorn (Buzzy), a 4th year student from the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Thammasat University who served as Vice President of the Thammasat University Student Union, Rangsit Campus for the academic year 2021, one of the key driving forces in the work of the TU Changemaker Group, said that the TU Changemaker Group is a gathering of students who are keen in various fields, both management, marketing strategy, and politics joined the working group with Prof. Dr. Oraphan Pochanukul, former Vice President for Student Affairs, Ms. Uraiwan Chartthong and Ms. Montira Nakwichian, United Nations Communications Specialist and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) to support and advise.

The very first mission of the TU Changemaker group is to conduct a mental conditioning workshop for the LGBTQ+ groups to provide them a space to vent, allow every of them to see that they are not the only one facing with the problems, aiming for them to have a more optimistic view of the world and leave behind of the past for a fresh start in life. The next project is about adolescent pregnancy, with the perception that it is unecessary for teenage mothers to drop from school, wishing the society to understand that there is nothing wrong being pregnant. When it comes to delivery time, they are able to take maternity leave and later come back to study.

“Buzzy” mentioned about the starting point in driving to foster social changes. It was from the environment in which he lived in during his childhood, often seeing violence and abuse against women by men. But personally, fortunately, his family does not encounter with any of those situations, therefore, hoping for friends or children of his generation to also be receiving these good fortunes.

“I first started from knowing nothing, gradually expanding until I had the opportunity to be the voice of students, being the spokesperson of Thammasat University, having had the opportunity to be the Vice President of the Thammasat University Student Union, being one of the committee to promote gender safety and understanding and having been awarded the Equity Award 2020 from the United Nations (UN). Such responsibilities and award do allow me to facilitate as an image and symbol of discussion on gender equality which is able to change the society,” Buzzy concluded.

Images of the suffering from the flood situation as a result of the depression “Dian Mu” that caused damage to people in the north, the northeast and the upper central region, causing the Thai society to raise big questions about the government’s flood countermeasures.

Not only in the severely affected areas, but the images of the damage have frightened Bangkok residents and brought back bad memories from the great flood in the year 2011.

In the midst of the feeling of insecurity, many people have risen up to build a surveillance system as well as create innovations to live with water or “Living with Water” by themselves.

One of them is “Am (phi) bious”, an award winning project from the contest of Water Disaster Response Learning Station, under the project “Save Ubon” by students of Thammasat University (TU). The project is currently being built and actually installed in Ban Nong Kin Phen School, Warin Chamrap District, Ubon Ratchathani Province.

Ban Nong Kin Phen School is considered a “prototype” of adapting to live with water in other areas, can be applied according to their own context. This school accepts students from kindergarten to elementary level and if there is no flood situation, the school spaces will be used for the students to do activities.

However, Mr. Thanabadee Thanatak and Mr. Narachit Krotprom, 4th year students from the Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Thammasat University see an opportunity to adapt school spaces to cope with flooding. Therefore, jointly designed a new building in the style of “floating building” where around 20 to 30 people can come to live in a sustainable way. There are sufficient vegetation plots, food and clean water for long-term living.

Within the building, there is also an activity room zone for students to learn and acquire information of the proper actions in the event of flooding as well.

 

Mr. Thanabadee said that the style of the architectural project was designed to be flexible. The floating form of the building is similar to the raft with an oil tank underneath. The building is modular, making the proportions and scale of the architecture easy to manage and is able to use standard size materials that are generally available. This is to minimize the amount of materials and reduce material costs. This prevents the cost of the project from escalating and increases the possibility of construction.

“Clean water is essential to life. We therefore design a system to separate drinking water from water for general uses and there are areas to plant homegrown vegetables that are eatable without having to process or season. When there is a flood, this part of the vegetation can be used for living. The capacity to accommodate people to come to shelter during the flood is about 20 to 30 people,” said Mr. Thanabodee.

It is certain that the project “Am (phi) bious” has attracted attention and has been extended to achieve real construction. But with a limited budget of only two hundred thousand Thai baht, causing the reduction in size by more than half and changes to some structures which was initially designed to accommodate 20-30 people down to only about 10 people when it comes to actual construction.

“Fortunately, when initially designing, ready-made construction materials were already used which is not a custom size. Therefore, there is no need to adjust anything much. After completion, this building will be set up in front of the school. While in normal circumstances, it can be used as a meeting point for parents to pick up their children,” Mr. Thanabadee explained.

This TU student also said that all the knowledge learned from the university was used in the design. But when they encounter with the actual job, they need to learn to adjust which must be consistent and based on the interests of users. In the construction process, lecturers from the Faculty of Architecture has come to support in the selection of the structural material for cost efficiency.

As for the construction of the Water Disaster Response Learning Station “Am (phi) bious”, we have already discussed with the contractor and there is coordination to Ubon Ratchathani University to help monitor the construction as well, as it is close to the actual construction site which is expected to be completed before the end of this year.

“This is the first design project to receive an award and actually be constructed. It is different from the previous one that was designed only as a class project. The issues and obstacles that arise are considered very important experiences. Personally, I surely enjoyed and feel happy to design and insist on creating new projects to drive society,” said the student.

Thammasat organizes online training for 50 teams of clean energy teachers, aiming to teach Thai children the importance of energy.

Asst. Prof. Dr. Yada Atanan, Lecturer of the Faculty of Learning Sciences and Education, Thammasat University, who is in charge of the “Innovative Learning Innovation Development for Clean Energy Project” said that this project aims for Thai children to learn and become aware of the energy that exists around them through 50 teams of high school teachers from all subject areas and vocational groups from all over the country that have come to attend training as the School Partners to disseminate and manage online learning for schools and communities, 10 main online lessons and 50 online mini-lessons to provide access to learning materials on clean energy and can be applied in their own learning management. The project has been started since October 2020, with completion in March 2022 and online training for this 50 team of clean energy teachers is regarded as the second training.

Asst. Prof. Dr. Yada added that currently in the process of mentoring activities and observing the use of learning materials in course. This is an activity that provides advice to teachers who participate in the “Energy-Learning Innovation Initiation Project” with students in their own classrooms as the target audience and follow up on the design and development of learning materials from teachers once a month via online platform from last August to October 2021. In which the 50 teams of teachers are expected to develop a prototype of clean energy learning materials that will be available to the public in November 2021.