Community Participation Research to Issue Social Measures
Dear TRC Director I am Ajarn Dr. Anu Jarernvongrayab, a lecturer of Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences, Prince of Songkla University. I was contacted by Tobacco Control Research and Knowledge Management Center (TRC.) to participate in workshop observation of “Community participation research to issue social measures for shredded tobacco consumption control” hosted by the Research Group on Wellbeing and Sustainable Development (WED), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Khonkaen University during 29 – 30 May 2011. This project was a part of a community project, “Building and Developing Social Measures for Tobacco Consumption and Distribution Control by Community Participation: Case study 3 in the Northeast of Thailand”. Associate Professor Dr. Buapun Promphakping is the leader of this research project funded by Tobacco Control Research and Knowledge Management Center (TRC.).
Knowledge gained from observations when participating in the workshop, “Community participation research to issue social measures for shredded tobacco consumption control”.
Knowledge gained from this project participation:
The aim of this project management is to advise the research project and relevant participants who might join this research project and become community researchers of this project.
The characteristic of this activity is to stimulate awareness of participants and their own communities about the use of shredded tobacco and to build a research network for establishing shredded tobacco consumption control in these communities.
This activity is to provide knowledge of the situation of shredded tobacco, research methods, and participation and intervention methods which emphasize the roles of participants as community researchers.
The additional information of the research situation from this project gained from participation:
This project is a continuing project that Associate Professor Dr. Buapun Promphakping and his team have carried out in 2 areas: (1) Community capability collaboration, and (2) Political economics in tobacco control. These two research areas provide researchers social background and information to conduct this research. Considering participants in this activity, most of them were those researchers who had participated in previous projects. For this reason, this training was run quickly and participants were enthusiastic to participate in this research with the research community.
The research study by researchers showed clearly that the Northeast of Thailand is being adversely impacted by the shredded tobacco consumption problem, which this research will investigate.
Comparative observations from Southern community members gained from participating in this workshop:
Listening to the shredded tobacco situation from the research group indicated that the problem of shredded tobacco consumption and production in the South of Thailand is less than in the Northeast of Thailand. I am sure that that study of shredded tobacco use in the South of Thailand would provide positive impact on shredded tobacco use compared to that being done in Northeast Thailand.
Conducting community participation research by researchers depends on community culture, with most of the people in the Northeast farmers; they live together as a big community and have close relationships. However, in Southern communities there are more various living styles because people living in this area have different careers such as farmers, fishermen and traders. There are not as many people who are farmers. For this reason, the culture of participating as a big group in the South is not quite as strong as compared to that in the Northeast. For this reason, conducting community participation research in the South should be applied using different methods than those methods used in the Northeast.
As information mentioned above, I would like to propose the direction for conducting further research following the living style of Southern people as detailed below:
The majority of the people living in Southern Thailand is Islamic and smoking is one prohibition of this religion. For this reason, the smoking problem in Islamic community is quite different from that in other communities since Baruku is used with other drugs such as cannabis. The smoking problem in the South starts among students. Hence, I would like to conduct research in the area of controlling using Baruku with other drugs among students studying at Pornor schools in the South of Thailand.
This research project can be separated into 2 sub-categories: (1) Survey using Barakul with other drugs in Pornor schools, and (2) Building school measures to control using Barakul with other drugs. For this research project, I have already contacted other researchers participating in this research project covering the Southern areas of Suratthani, Songkhla and Yala. 1-2
Therefore, I would like to inform you regarding my observation of these matters.
Ajarn Dr. Anu Jarernvongrayab A lecturer of Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences, Prince of Songkla University.
