Allison Sanders of Baan Dek Foundation: Supporting the Vulnerable & Creating Systematic Change

Social Innovation Asia

In this episode of Social Innovation Asia, Michael Waitze talks with Allison Sanders, the Director of Strategy and Partnerships at Baan Dek Foundation about the Foundation’s work supporting the lives of vulnerable migrant children growing up in construction worker campsites in Thailand.

The Baan Dek Foundation was established in 2002 in Chiang Mai by Nicola Crosta, Magali du Parc and Acha Sripaurya. After surveying vulnerable communities around Chiang Mai, they realized many of the most vulnerable in Chiang Mai are the children of migrant workers living at construction campsites around the city. They are at risk of neglect, abuse, exploitation and missing out on basic childhood development needs.

In response, they developed a multilingual team that engages in a social work-based approach to supporting children from Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos living at these campsites. A core part of this approach is building a bridge between migrant communities and existing education, health and safety services and where there is a gap Baan Dek tries to find a solution to ensure the needs of children are met.

Baan Dek has been supporting more than 1,000 children per year in Chiang Mai, but the challenge is large and can not be handled by the Baan Dek team in Chiang Mai alone. They estimate there are 60,000 children living at construction worker campsites around the country, particularly in Bangkok where migrants provide the bulk of labour for the booming construction industry. As a result, Baan Dek has recently expanded to Bangkok and has been developing sustainable and scalable solutions to meet the challenge.

Among many of Baan Dek's programs, Allison points out, their Migrant Empowerment Project has been one of the most impactful. It trains migrants in construction camp community with the skills to access health, education and safety services and become peer educators who can take over the role of Baan Dek’s staff.

Baan Dek also recognizes the importance of scalability. They took their successful Superheroes Academy program which has been teaching about 500 migrant children a year in life-skills and turned it into an application that enables children to digitally access the academy activities through tablets and low-cost smartphones. In recognition of the innovation, Baan Dek won the MIT Solve Award.

Beyond making a direct impact, the Baan Dek Foundation’s strategy is to drive systemic change and “improve the dynamics of the entire construction industry” by proactively collaborating with institutional and corporate partners. A key partner is Sansiri, one of Thailand's leading property developers. It works with UNICEF and Baan Dek to improve conditions in construction worker campsites and provide safe spaces and education for children.

To drive more systemic change, Baan Dek worked with UNICEF to produce the Building Futures in Thailand report on support for children living in construction worker campsites and how private sector companies can ensure children at their campsites have access to education, health and safety services and their childhood development needs are met.

To learn more about the Baan Dek Foundation, visit http://www.baandekfoundation.org