The NET Foundation is a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that focuses on rural community
development in the north-east of Thailand. In 1981, the founding members first initiated a small integrated rural development operation on the border of Thailand with Cambodia in the Thai province of Surin. The project was called “Toward Self-Reliance in Northeast Thailand: Integrated Village Development along the Thai-Kampuchean Border of Surin Province-NET”. The project covered 52 villages, lasted from 1981 until 1988, and was supported by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
Towards the end of the project in 1986, many people involved in the project agreed that what they had learned was valuable and transferrable. They therefore decided to establish the NET Foundation in Surin Province on 19 November 1986. Today, the Foundation is registered as the 657th organization on the Ministry of Finance’s list of domestic charitable foundations.
The experience gained from the original project, with continuing support from CIDA, paved the way for many other projects initiated by the NET Foundation in the region between 1988 and 1993,including the Participatory Community Development project. In the meantime, the Foundation expanded its operational coverage from 52 to 80 villages.
As the nature of the problems changed, the NET Foundation in 1994 adapted its objectives and expanded its responsibilities into a wider range of development projects in both rural and urban areas. The move was supported and financed by many organizations, governmental, domestic, and international, along with private funding from the NET Foundation itself.
The 32 years of works side by side with the deprived to develop the life quality of the people at all levels, without any preference, rendered the NET FOUNDATION being selected for the ASEAN AWARD on The ASEAN Leadership Award on Rural Development and Poverty Eradication in 2013, This Award was first bestowed to Non-government organization and socio-civil development organization in the 8th conference of ASEAN ministers on rural development at Yogyakarta, Indonesia on July 5,2013
Objectives
1. Provide transformative learning to improve the quality of life of the people.
2. Implement community development through a learning process.
3. Provide coordination for other local development foundations.
4. Cooperate with other charitable foundations.
5. Initiate cooperation between relevant domestic and international organizations.
6. Provide support for people organization and community development
7. Initiate programmes to protect and preserve natural resources and energy management.
