our local and national partners

We Partner Closely with the Development and Education for Daughters and Communities Centre (DEPDC)

The background and objectives of the Mekong Regional Indigenous Child Rights Home (MRICRH) are closely linked to those of The Development and Education for Daughters and Communities Centre. (DEPDC)

In 1989 Sompop Jantraka, the founder of the DEPDC, participated in a research project focusing on the sex trade in Thailand, along with Michiho Inagaki, a Japanese journalist. They found that thousands of young women from the Chiang Rai Province in northern Thailand had been trafficked and were being lured, forced and coerced into the sex industry. Girls as young as 10 years old had been sold to brothels in Bangkok and other cities overseas. According to their findings, 90% of the girls who left their villages became trapped in the sex industry.

Jantraka, who saw for himself how girls were about to be trafficked to Bangkok and other cities, believed that education would provide better opportunities for their futures. He founded the Daughters' Education Programme (DEP), while Inagaki returned to Japan to establish the Asian Childrenís Fund (ACF), the first major funder of the DEP.

In November of 2002 DEPDC started the Mekong Region Indigenous Child Rights Home (MRICRH), which incorporates a Half Way Home, a Child Protection and Rights (CPR) Center for Hill Tribe Children and a twenty-four hour hotline for children in difficult circumstances.

Given the illegal and complex nature of trafficking, DEP believes neither Government nor NGOís can be effective by themselves. Coordinated and complementary efforts are essential within countries and across borders. Thus the MRICRH is operated in conjunction with the Government Hill Tribe Welfare and Development Centre (HDC).

Our other regional and national partners include:

• Local communities
• Village Leaders Chiang Rai Province
• The Centre for the Protection of Childrenís Rights (CPCR)
• The US Embassy in Bangkok

• Governmental Organization (GO) Baan Kredtakarn
• Chiang Rai Children Welfare Foundation (CCF) in Thailand
• FACE
• Rajabhat Institute Chiang Rai
• The Chinese Consulate in Chiang Mai
• Japanese embassy in Chiang Mai

Cross-border co-operation with governmental and nongovernmental partners is vital to the work we do.