The Daughters Education Programme was established in 1989 in support of girls (and boys too, since 1998) to attend primary and secondary school in two districts of Chiang Rai province. The children have all been identified as being at risk of entering prostitution or are orphans with no one to take care of them. Some children live at home but attend extracurricular activities at the DEPDC centres in Mae Sai and Chiang Khong. Others live at the centres because they are too vulnerable if they live at home or have no one suitable to take care of them. Most belong to different hill tribe minority groups living in Northern Thailand.

Activities and services provided by DEP include:

• the financial support of each girl and boy to attend local primary and secondary school, covering costs of books, uniforms, lunches, transport and equipment etc;
  
• the cost of living at the centre including meals, clothes, bedding, etc;
  
• the cost of medical health services when needed. For children with specific emotional, developmental or academic problems counseling services are provided.
  
• DEP also maintains regular contact with school officials, village heads and relatives in order to ensure the progress of the children; travel expenses for DEP staff and children are incurred during the visits.

DEP believes strongly in the importance of providing an education as a key to opening a range of life options for young people, beginning of course with a positive primary school experience. DEP couples this with a program of personal development providing extracurricular activities, such as the Swimming Club, which focus on building self-esteem, empowerment, overcoming personal problems and the position in life they may have endured before living at DEP. Specifically, DEP staff facilitate life skills activities such as teaching the children about nutrition, cooking, cleaning, personal hygiene and healthcare, as well as general information about drug abuse, HIV/AIDS and their human rights with particular focus on the situation of child labour and prostitution in the Mae Sai and Chiang Khong districts. The costs for running these programs include staff salaries, teaching and research materials.

As men’s gender predominance in society has prevailed, DEPDC was built on the foundation of women and girls rights to education due to the horrendous sexual exploitation of the female gender. Over the years and due to the influx of trafficked boys in the Mekong Sub-region DEPDC integrated boys into the programme. Additionally, many of the rescued children residing at DEPDC come from a family of siblings and in view of this, and to ensure that the children of one family stay together, DEPDC has frequently accepted all the siblings of one family, which often included boys.

This policy change was also brought to community level when DEPDC had a public awareness campaign through community participation of the problems of child prostitution to both genders by advocating the rights of the child, both boys and girls, and seeking public support that trafficking is not limited to just women and girls but boys are also sexually abused victims. As it is now recognised that young boys are at similar risk of entering prostitution and other exploitative labour situations, DEPDC began accepting boys to the programme in 1998.

Daughters Education Programme is supported soley by private donations.