The PDA was founded in 1974 as a non-governmental organization with the initial aim to complement the efforts of the Royal Thai Government in promoting family planning in Thailand, especially in areas where knowledge and access to services were scarce. Utilizing a participatory, community-based approach, PDA recruited and trained residents of villages and urban neighborhoods to provide information on family planning, including the supervised, non-medical distribution of oral contraceptives. This distribution network covered more than one-third of the country, thus contributing significantly to the decrease in the annual population growth rate from 3.3% in the mid-1970s to 0.6% in 2005. During the same period, the number of children per family fell from 7 to under two … (Homepage 1/2).
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Address: Population and Community Development Association PDA, 6 Sukhumvit 12, Klongtoey, Bangkok 10110, Thailand;
Contacts.
Homepage 2/2: … After addressing the immediate family planning needs, PDA expanded its activities to include primary health care, HIV/AIDS education and prevention, water resource development and sanitation, income-generation, environmental conservation, promotion of small-scale rural enterprise programs, gender equality, youth development, and democracy promotion. Most recently, PDA has aggressively approached the problem of rural poverty by empowering the poor through the Village Development Partnership, which establishes a community-owned Village Development Bank for the purpose of microcredit.
Today, PDA is the leading and most diversified NGO in Thailand, employing over 800 staff members and working with over 12,000 volunteers. PDA has 18 regional development centers and branch offices located across 15 provinces in rural Thailand. It also manages operation of the Lamplaimat-Pattana Primary and Secondary Schools, which is revolutionary, private education for the poor.
PDA has pioneered sustainable grassroots endeavors, marked by extensive villager involvement not only as beneficiaries, but also as partners, planners, managers, and leaders. PDA’s programs are based on the belief that local people are best suited to be an equal partner in shaping and sustaining their own development. 35 years of PDA’s involvement has created significant change in the following areas: … (full text).