TCC Project

For the second year, the Opportunity Creation and Innovation Office (Office 6) of Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth) opened to receive proposals for Bike Community for Health Projects, and again Thailand Cycling Club (TCC) is designated to help make these projects successful as much as possible through a “Project for Capacity Building, Monitoring and Supporting Bike Community for Health Projects”. In its first stage, TCC then convened a workshop on June 16-18, 2016, in a hotel in Bangkok to help community and local administrative organisations that had submitted a proposal to ThaiHealth to improve their proposal.  This workshop was participated by 178 persons associated with 104 projects from all regions of Thailand.   Following an opening speech by the Director of ThaiHealth Office 6, Professor Emeritus Thongchai Panswad Ph.D., TCC Founder and President, then gave out various ideas about cycling promotion in Thailand’s social context.  

Prof. Thongchai gave a speech on cycling promotion in Thai context

After lunch, leaders of three successful first-year Bike Community for Health Projects in Angthong, Prachuab Khirikhan and Nakhon Srithammarat Province went on stage to share their experiences  

Experience sharing by leaders of 3 successful Bike Community for Health Projects in the first year

The three veterans shared their valuable experiences about how to promote cycling from operating their Bike Community for Health project for about a year.  They included, for instance,

• continuous use of bicycle as a tool to carry out activities;
• formation of an operation body ie. working group;
• project leaders’ regular use of bicycle, “If leaders don’t ride (bicycle), their talks would be futile”;
• seeking cooperation from other government agencies in the local area;
• looking for opportunities/channels to network or expand project impacts;
• active public relations to make the project known to and understood by local people in general;
• regular learning lessons from the project, etc.

Successes of the project could be measured concretely, for example, by counting increasing number of bicycle and/or people who use bicycle in their daily life, number of newly opened bicycle shop, and number of members of a newly formed local cycling club, for example. The veterans also talked about problems and obstacles they had faced which new bike community project operators should be aware of as they would definitely face some, such as delays as all local administrative organisations have so many responsibilities, many works to do, at the same time.  They, however, ended their discussions by giving moral supports to local administrative organisations who wish to promote cycling that they should not worry too much about financial supports as they would be able to gain some from other government agencies in their province.

Reported by Gawin Chutima, TCC Committee Member