How Mr. Condom made Thailand a better place Mechai Viravaidya
[Music]
[Music]
welcome to Thailand now when I was a
young man 40 years ago the country is
very very poor with lots and lots and
lots of people living in poverty we
decided to do something about it but we
didn’t begin with the welfare program or
a poverty reduction program but we began
with a family planning program following
a very successful maternal child health
activity sets of activities so basically
no one would accept family planning if
that children didn’t survive
so the first step get to the children
get to the mothers and then follow up
with family planning not just child
mortality alone you need also Family
Planning now let me take you back as to
why we needed to do it in my country
that was the case in 1974 seven children
four family tremendous growth at three
point three percent
there was just no future we needed to
reduce the poverty interest rate so we
said let’s do it the women said we agree
we’ll use pills but we need a doctors to
prescribe the pills and we had very very
few doctors so we didn’t take no as an
answer we took no as a question so we
went to the nurses and the midwives who
were also women and did a fantastic job
at explaining how to use the pill that
was wonderful but it covered only 20% of
the country what do we do for the other
80% leave them alone and say well
they’re not medical personnel no we
decided to do a bit more so we went to
the ordinary people that you saw
actually below that yellow sign I wish
they hadn’t wiped that because there was
Coca Cola that
we were so much bigger than coca-cola in
those days and no difference the people
they chose were the people we chose
they’re well known in the community they
knew that customers who always right and
they were terrific and they practiced
their family planning themselves so they
could supply pills and condoms
throughout the country in every village
of the country so there we are we went
to the people who were seen as the cause
of the problem to be the solution so
wherever there were people and you can
see much from the women selling things
here’s the floating market selling
bananas and crabs and also
contraceptives wherever you find people
you will find contraceptives in Thailand
and then we decided why not get to
religion because in the Philippines the
Catholic Church was pretty strong and
type he were Buddhist so we went to them
and they said look could you help us so
I’m there the one in blue not the yellow
holding a ball of holy water for the
monk to sprinkle holy water on pills and
condoms for the sanctity of the family
and this picture was sent throughout the
country so some of the monks in the
villages were doing the same thing
themselves and the women was saying no
wonder we have no side effects it’s been
rest that was that perception and then
we went to teachers you need you need
everybody to be involved in trying to
provide whatever it is that makes
humanity a better place so we were to
the teachers over quarter of a million
were taught about family planning with
new alphabet a v Ferber C for condom
either I or D Viva vasectomy and then we
had a snakes and ladders game when you
throw dice if you land on anything Pro
Family Planning you move ahead like
mother takes the pill every night put
very good mother move it uncle buys
condom very good uncle move ahead and
who gets Stranglers use condom come back
that again
again education class entertainment and
their kids were doing it in schools too
we had real iterations with condoms
we had children’s condom blowing
championship and before long the condom
was known as the girl’s best friend in
Thailand for poor people diamonds don’t
make it so the condom is the girl’s best
friend we introduced our first
microcredit program in 1975 and the
women who organized it said we only want
to lend to women who practice family
planning if you’re pregnant take care of
your pregnancy if you’re not pregnant
you can take a load not from us and that
was run by them and after 35 36 years
it’s still going on it’s part of the
village Development Bank it’s not a real
Bank but so fun
microcredit and we didn’t need a big
organization to run it we were run by
the villages themselves and you probably
hardly seen a Thai man there it’s always
women women women women and then we
thought we’d help America because
America has been helping everyone
whether they want help or not
[Applause]
and this is on the 4th of July we
decided to provide resecting me to all
men but in particular American men to
the front of the queue rideable to the
ambassador’s residence during his Van
Daan and the Hotel gave us the ballroom
for it
very appropriate room and since it was
near lunchtime they said alright we’ll
give you some lunch of course it must be
American : you’ve got two brands Coke
and Pepsi and then the food
it’s either hamburger or hotdog and I
thought a hotdog would be more symbolic
and and here is this then young man for
Willy boom who worked for USAID
obviously he’s had this perspective me
because his hotdogs half-eaten and he
was very happy it made a lot of news in
America and it angered some people also
I said don’t worry come over I’ll do the
whole lot of you and what happened you
know all this thing from 7 children to
1.5 children population growth rate of
3.3 to 0.5 you could call it the Coca
Cola approach if you like it was exactly
the same thing I’m not sure what a Coca
Cola followed us so we followed Coca
Cola but we’re good friends and so
that’s the case of everyone joining in
we didn’t have a strong government we
didn’t have lots of doctors but it’s
everybody’s job who can change attitude
and behavior then age came along and hit
Thailand and we had to stop doing a lot
of good things to fight AIDS but
unfortunately the government was in
denial denial denial so I work wasn’t
effective so I thought well if you can’t
go to the government go to the military
so I went to the military and ask to
borrow three hundred grey do stations
they have more than the government and
they got more guns than the government
so I asked him could they help us in our
fight against HIV and after I gave them
statistics they said yes okay you can
use all the radio stations television
stations and that’s when we went onto
the airwaves and then we had a new prime
minister soon after that and he said
I could you come and join he asked
me in because he liked my wife a lot so
I said ok he became the chairman of
National AIDS committee and increased
the budget 50 for every ministry even
judges had to be involved with AIDS
education everyone and we said the
public institutions religious
institutions schools everyone was
involved and here every media person had
to be trained for HIV and we gave every
station half a minute extra for
advertising to earn more money so they
were happy with that and then AIDS
education in all schools starting from
University and these are high school
kids teaching high school kids and the
best teachers were the girls not the
boys and they were terrific and these
girls who go around teaching about safe
sex and HIV were known as mother Teresa
and then we went down one more step
these are primary school kids third
fourth grade going to every household in
the village every household in the whole
of Thailand hearing aids information and
a condom - every household given by
these young kids and no parents objected
because we were saved trying to save
lives and this was a life saver
and we said everyone needs to be
involved so you have the companies also
realizing that six start on work and
debt customers don’t buy so they all
trade and then we have this captain
condom with his Harvard MBA going to
schools and nice spots and they’d have
to you need a symbol of something you
know in every country every program you
need a symbol and this is probably the
best thing he’s ever done with MBA
and then we gave condoms up everywhere
in the street everywhere everyone in
taxis you get condoms and also in
traffic the policemen give you hundred
our cops-and-robbers program so can you
imagine New York policemen giving out
calm down of course I can and they’d
enjoy it immensely I’d see them standing
around right now everywhere imagine if
they had come down that’s giving out to
all sorts of people and then your new
change we had hair ban clothing and the
condom for your mobile phone during the
rainy season and these were the condoms
that we introduced one says weapon of
mass protection we found you know
somebody here was searching for the
weapon of mass destruction well we have
found the weapon of mass protection the
condom and then it says here with the
American flag don’t leave home without
it
but I have some to give out afterwards
but let me warn you these are tie size
so be very careful
and so so you can sue you can see that
condoms can condoms can do so many
things look at this I give this to Al
Gore and to build senior also stop
global warming use condoms and then this
is the picture I mentioned to you that
the weapon of mass protection and let
the next Olympics save some lives why
just run around and then and then
finally in Thailand where Buddhists we
don’t have a God so instead we say in
rubber we trust so you can see that we
added everything to I endeavor to make
life better for the people we had
condoms in all the refrigerators in the
hotels in the schools because alcohol
impairs judgment and then what happened
after all this time everybody joined in
according to the UN it declined by new
cases of HIV declined by 90% and
according to the World Bank seven point
seven million lives were saved otherwise
there wouldn’t be many Thais walking
around today so just showed you you
could do something about it
90 percent of the funding came from
Thailand there was political commitment
some financial commitment and everybody
joined in the fight so just don’t leave
it to the specialists and doctors and
nurses we all need to help and then we
decided to help people out of poverty
now that we got it’s somewhat out of the
way this time not with government alone
but in cooperation with the business
community because poor people are
business people who lack business skills
and access to credit those are the
things to be provided by the business
community we’re trying to turn them into
barefoot entrepreneurs little business
people the only way out of poverty is
through business enterprise so that was
done so the money goes from the company
into the village via tree planting so
it’s not a free gift they plant the
trees and the money goes into their
microcredit fund which we call the
village development back everybody joins
in and they feel they own the bank
because they’ve brought the money in and
before that you can borrow the money you
can need to be trained and we believe in
what will help the poor those are living
in poverty access to credit must be a
human right access to credit
mas
human right otherwise they’ll never get
out of poverty and then before getting
alone
you must be trained here’s a what we
call a barefoot MBA teaching people how
to do business so that when they borrow
our money they’ll succeed with the
business so these are some of the
Bissell’s mushrooms crabs vegetables
trees fruits and this very interesting
nike ice cream and Nike biscuits this is
a village sponsored by Nike
they said they should stop making shoes
and clothes make these better because we
can afford them and then we have silk
tie silk now we’re making Scottish
patents as you can see on the left to
sell to all people or Scottish ancestors
so anyone sitting in and watching TV can
in touch with me and then this is our
answer to Starbucks in Thailand coffee
and condoms see Starbucks keeps you
awake we keep you awake and alive can
you imagine at every Starbucks that you
can also get condoms so you can order
your countdown to the cappuccino and
then now finally in education we want to
change the school as being underutilized
into a place where it’s a lifelong
learning center for everyone we call
this our school-based integrated rural
development and it’s a center a focal
point for economic and social
development so we do the school make it
serve the community needs and here is a
bamboo building all of them are bamboo
this is a geodesic dome made of bamboo
and I’m sure Buckminster Fuller would be
very very proud to see a bamboo geodesic
dome and we use vegetables around the
school ground so they raise their own
vegetables and then finally I firmly
believe if we want the MDGs to work the
Millennium Development Goals we need to
add family planning to it of course our
mortality first and then family planning
everyone needs family planning service
it’s underutilized so we have now found
the weapon of mass protection and we
also ask the next Olympics to be
involved in saving lives and then
finally that is our network and these
are tide tulips
thank you very much indeed
[Applause]