Welcome to Bangkok

Bangkok, กรุงเทพมหานคร, or otherwise 'city of angels' with a population of approximately 14 million people within the metropolitan area is a dynamic, never ending, and never stopping city.

                                      Skytrain - Chatuchak market

                                                                                 Bangkok

                                                                   Street food market

 Fast growing with friendly people, tropical weather, colours, temples, canals, food markets, traffic jams, shopping malls, Bangkok has a busy life style which characterizes its unique essense.

                                                                                Tuck-tuck

                                                            Wat Po Temple

                                                  Canal - Wanthonlang District

The pace of growth in Bangkok reflects high levels of urbanisation supportingthe vision of becoming a world-class global city and a competitive financial hub in South East Asia. Such vision and growth has generated a disparity in Bangkok's population in terms of income and access to secure land and housing. Slums or informal settlements are the predominant housing options for the urban poor in Bangkok.

                                    
                                

Access to secure land and housing for the urban poor is continously affected by rising land and housing prices, the promotion of land uses with high return on property investment such as commercial development, rural-to-urban migration, and population growth.


It is here where my journey started as a urban planning master student in a new city with a different culture and language. Here I found myself in search for answers to questions about planning practices that could find a way to transform the lives of poor women and men, boys and girls, and move closer to a more socially just vision of the city.

Who are the experts in housing the urban poor?

 

                                  Presentation by Soomsook Bonnyabancha - DPU WORKSHOP 2012

With this question we were introduced to the Community Organisation Development Institute (CODI), our host, and a public organisation of the Thai Government operating under the Minister of Social Development and Human Security.

There are different answers to the initial question of this post, throughout history these answers have favoured governments, donors, NGOs, and the private sector influencing low-income housing policies, some more succesfull than others but all facing the question of how to scale up housing provision to the city level. CODI's answer to this question - the poor themselves - is the base for understanding their approach to facilitating land and housing security to the urban poor.

CODI's Baan Mankong programme or 'secure housing' in thai puts communities at the centre of the development process, channeling government funds in the form of infrastructure subsidies and soft loans directly to community networks. For this to happen, communities are organized in cooperatives and savings groups and manage their finances collectively. Communities also receive collective land titles and the opportunity to build or 'upgrade' their houses and infrastructure services together depending on their own needs, priorities, and capacities.

                                               Community upgrading models before and after Baan Mankong

It is through facilitating housing provision that Baan Mankong strenghtens communities and their networks to become the main actors of their own development. It is not only about the finance, the houses or the infrastructure, is more than that - its about the people:

...and the creation of synergies between them and other important actors in the city such as local authorities, land owners, the private sector, academics, and government departments. By entering a process of upgrading, managing finances and prioritising together people build communities and the capacity to work and support each other collectively. The stronger the networks, the stronger the influece of communities in their development process and in scaling up this process to the city level.

                                                          CODI Model

 By listening to CODI and Soomsok (former Director of CODI) and the experiences and stories of different communities and individuals within these communities,I could only think about the importance of our learning process. There where so many things to learn and so many things people had to offer us ... experiences and stories that we do not find in a text book or in an academic journal. It was really fascinating to hear about people getting organized for a common goal, and inspiring listening about their struggles to secure land and housing. It only made me validate CODI's approach in considering people as the very experts in development and transformation.

In the next sections of this blog I will take you to three different communities I visited and try to show you a little about their story, experiences and involvelment in Baan Mankong.



Tepheela

Tepheela is an original settlement along the canal within Wangthonlang District. Some of its people have a long history living here some of them migrating from Laos into agricultural land. The settlement is a mix between traditional timber houses and more recent dwellings. One resident, showed us photos of his mother who had lived in the area since its origins:

My impressions of Tepheela during my visit where that it has a very strong sense of place. While walking through the allies we got to see the different livelihood activities of people which are entrenched in the physical characteristics of the settlement.

People have their own way of life here some earning their living from managing a shop, or informal rental schemes for migrants and seasonal workers. One family even has a very innovative transport system used for crossing the canal which functions by moving the boat by cycling!

             

           

                                              Informal rental scheme

There was also an old man that seemed to always be peacefully reading in his baranda...

 And some ladies showed us their very beautiful houses with gardens and lots of space...

  

Tepheela is considered one of the most dense settlements within the District lacking basic infrastructure and services such as access roads and garbage collection. However it it is my perception that even when it considered a slum itself it has a variety of residents with different incomes, needs, and expectations of the settlement, which are not necessarily poor.

 The problematic we explored in Tepheela relates to its status as an informal settlement with no rights to the land, and the desire of the Crown Poperty Bureau (CPB) (the mayor land owner within the District) to 'upgrade' the settlements through the Baan Mankong Programme. This sounds right no?

However what we encountered was that the CPB is a very powerful actor in this area and despite its long trayectory upgrading informal settlements that occupy their land, some of their approaches are still rigid and do not accomodate the diverse needs of the people in communities.

We were given the task to design a re-blocking exercise for the area ... which basically means re-arranging and demolishing (when necessary) some of the existing houses to make space for new houses and services such as roads and public facilities. This is important for the CPB and the condition to give security of land to the community.

This task was interesting considering this upgrading option has been succesfull in other communities. However this task can only be done with the people that live in the community not without them!!

 This created on us some anxiety and it definetely made me think about my role as a urban development practitioner. I realised how easy is to make mistakes when you are in a different context and you don't have access to information and language. We where expecting to be able to work with the community in this exercise... however this was not in the original plan of the CPB.

How do you mediate between the interests of powerfull actors such as the CPB and the communities? Specially considering that is for them that you are doing the work? What I learnt from this situation is that you really need to have strong ethics as part of your work and if things are not going in the direction we think it should go, then we must communicate, negotiate and explored the alternatives. 

And so we did... and we had the opportunity to talk to different people in the communities, mainly women, young and old...

                      

 From these conversations we found out that there were conflicting views within community members about the re-blocking and any other intervention in the area. People were divided, some of them had started a savings group in order to enter Baan Mankong and others were reluctant to join it as Baan Mankong was not their interest.

Finding out this information was important as it shows that perhaps re-blocking is not the best option to upgrade this settlement and that other options such as in-situ upgrading need to be considered. What is most important is that the community gets together and learn to work collectively as this is the only way they are going to be able to negotiate with such as powerful actors as the CPB about their future and the future of the area...

                      

                                                                                                 

Nomklao

 Nomklao is one of the communities within Wangtholang District that is in the construction stage of the Baan Mankong Programme.  People here come from different backgrounds but been living together for a long time. Some stages have been completed and given a 30 year land lease from the CPB, and others are still under construction. 

Here the dynamics are very different from the ones in Tepheela. People seemed more united and strong. For instance, the community leader of Nomklao is the one representing the whole District and women where more involved in leadership, recognized, and outspoken.

The area is very close to commercial actitivies and a lot of people here are street vendors. We where introduced to the community, its people and history through a video which took us through a long history of activism and milestones that have had an impact in the community living conditions.

We came to Nomklao wanting to have more interaction with community members and not only the community leaders. This was important for us as we wanted to hear from a variety of individuals and explore diverse experiences and points of view.

We (with the help of our translators and CODI staff) organized a participatory exercise known as the River of Life, with the aim to collect people visions on the past, present and future of the area.

This experience was really fascinating for me as it was the first time I did something like this. It was challenging as we had to work together with our translators as well as the community members in order to gain information. I really enjoyed working like this because hearing what people want to say is very interesting as I was getting a real life picture of the experiences, feelings, and needs of people. In my opinion, this type of communication and interaction is what development practitioners should aim for...not saying that is easy but definetely worth it!

I found challenging communicating through a translator as sometimes you don't understand or they don't understand exactly what the questions or answers are. I think these types of exercises require a lot of time in order to gain confidence and feel more confortable with the people and atmosphere.

This exercise showed us the evolution of the community from being an area lacking secure land, housing and infrastructure to an area being upgraded through the Baan Mankong Programme. People seemed happy and satisfied with the programme as not only people are gaining material benefits but also more recognition as citizens from the CPB, local authorities and other government departments.

We discovered that the community has a savings group that has diversified its funds for investment in other sectors such as education, health and community activities. They have also created a 'risk fund' in order to help people that cannot afford to pay the required amount for the loan repayments. This risk fund is very interesting as shows how people manage to respond to financial challenges that can appear along the way.

My learning process

This journey has given me many learnings to my personal and proffessional life which in fact I believe are linked in many ways. I can summarize these learnings in different facets - 1, the constant re-framing of theory with practice, 2, Johanna as a member in a team, 3, the personal in the proffesional, and 4, the lessons from the people I met ...
 

I arrived to Bangkok with expectations about our work and pre-conceived ideas about transformation and how does this concept related to urban development planning. However I believe we did a good job with my group by keeping our initial ideas open to our experiences in the field. This was important for me as by being open I didn't miss out the essence of the events that I experienced and the people that I met.

I learnt to balance between reality and theory through a constant interaction between both which helped me to re-frame and re-think ideas and proposals for our report. When I was in the field I made the decision to let go of my mind and engage with the realities of the places and people that we were visiting.

I truly believe that this is essential for us as planners and proffesionals involved in development as what we really are is simple students...
 

 I was overwhelmed by the amount of group work that we did. I think this was challenging for everybody considering we were groups of 10 people.  I received two important lessons this time which i want to take with me. The first is that sometimes I need to let go and trust more in the people I am working with. It might be my personality and part of the passion I feel for the work i do but sometimes i don't let go and by doing this I put a lot of pressure on myself and may hinder the participation of others on the group. The second is that I need to learn to communicate better my ideas graphically for others to understand the main points and arguments that I want to develop.
I think this point is essential when working in development and with people from other backgrounds and nationalities, as putting things on paper facilitate communication and exchange of ideas.
 

In this trip I experienced how my personal characteritics and the person I am affects my professional life. I am a student, woman, young, and from a certain class background and all these characteristics where manifested when I was in the field making me see things in a particular manner. Being concious about my biases and the way I pereceived things was essential to really engage with the realities of different groups and see things through their eyes.

I realise how easy is to make mistakes ... or ask the wrong questions to the wrong person and in the wrong time. I believe you get better with practice but this is a reflection about the importance to be councious about the people you are dealing with, and explore the dynamics between different groups before you ask questions or choose a particular exercise to do.

For example the river of life that we developed in Nomklao was interesting, however the open format of participation which this exercise entitles was not that effective in collecting the opinions of different groups such as women as community leaders with more authority ended up completing the whole exercise.

Also, is important to know the cultural protocol and dynamics and the way information is managed. Information is very important and access to it can be very sensitive. So making sure you are not 'trasspassing' other responsibilities when accessing information is important.
Being counciuos about this is also important to minimize your feelings of being an outsider and start to feel more comfortable in the new environment and with new people.

I was amazed with the people I met in Bangkok. It was inspiring to meet community leaders and hear their stories and the struggles they go through every day to warantee a better life for the people they represent. I was moved by their generosity not only because of the amount of food they gave us but because of the way they shared their experiences and knowledge with us.

I was also very moved to have met the people working at CODI and the Community Architect Network mostly young and very passionate about their work. I found them very genuine and also generous in sharing their knowledge and experiences. People I met where very smart and at the same time very humble and able to share their knowledge in a very open way. For me this experience has showed what is really a collaborative practice in the planning field. And i realised that without this we have nothing... as the exchange of knowledge is the momentum and the piece that keeps things moving. This is what I enjoyed the most...and something that i want to take with me forever.

                                                                Soomsok

Last but not least and perhaps the most important lesson i gained is to smile more!

For some reason we become serious when we talk about work as if it was very important ...Sometimes is better to laugh and smile and change our hard faces of 'proffesionals' to that of students and active agents for change.

                                                                            Thank you Sokly!!!