Highlighs of activities and organization of activities

1. Seminar on “Thai Fabrics- Economic Wefts and Wafts ” was organized with the aim of providing information and generating public awareness appreciation of Thai-made products - culminating in Thai public favour for Thai fabrics and market for Thai fabrics

2. Thai Frabic Fashion Show is a presentation of the various ways of using Thai fabrics from past to present to produce attires for various occasions including care and maintainance.

3. Demonstration of Production of Thai Fabrics and Sales was held to provide knowledge and information on the various stages of production of Thai fabrics and to promote sale of such fabrics to viewers. The products which were of high quality were enthusiatically received by the public which spent to the tune of 7 million baht.

4. Thai Food - Health Food is one of the project activities aiming at informing the public the cultural worth of Thai food and relation to health care, food processing, vegetables from kitchen garden , herbal cultivation and uses of herbal plants

5 . Motivating Songs were written with the aime of arousing the national awareness of the need to weather the economic crisis. There were four categories of motivating songs i.e. country , modern, traditional classic and traditional folk.

In addition a concert on folk songs in support of the national campaign was held at the Main Theatre of Thai Cultural Centre featuring big time songsters such as Surachai Sombat-charoen, Sodsai Rungpothong, Sorachart Sombat- charoen, Opas Tosaporn etc.

Cassete tapes on “ Thai Folk and Country Songs Fight Economic Crisis” were made for public distribution and at the same time to encourage Thai public to enjoy Thai songs - folk, country and modern.

6. Introduction of Home Industry Products to the Public .There are a large number of communities that are producing or the capabilities to produce cultural products to earn income for the families and communities Demonstration of products and production techniques from communities such as Hua Samrong, Tawung, Lopburi was organized for possible emulation bu other communities.

7. Production of Cultural Media in foreign languages. Documents ranging kfrom pamphlets to books -all on Thai culture or culture related contents were published basically for reading and information of non-Thai. Folders featuring Thai greetings in Romanized alphabets , booklets on Thai food in English and greeting slogans written in several foreign languages on cloth banners prove to be extremely popular among visitors to Thailand.

8. Activities in support of voluntary organizations in the fight to ward off economic crisis constitute a proof that voluntary or private organizations have the role to play in encouraging, supporting or helping people to adopt the culute of self-reliance and thereby strenthen their communities. Such action is being seriously considered as one of the Relevants for the country to survive the crisis.

9. Cultural Passport is a small project which hands out Thai cultural passports to tour sits with the aim of pursuading tourists to visit Thailand and take advantage of tourists services. It is expected that more tourists will visit Thailand and contribute to the accumulation of much needed foreign reserves.

Amazing Banana Project . About some fifty kinds of banana from all part of Thailand were put on view together with some 30 products from banana plants. Experts on banana were on hand to answer questions on banana.

11. Workshop of ties and dyed techniques and production of souvenirs was designed to train participants to adopt what they learn at the workshop as a side career or even train others to make a career from what they learn. The workshop was well received by the public . Requests were made by some public members to the organizer to run similar workshops on a regular basis or as often as possible.

12. A series of two exhibitions on “Thai Culture Fights off Economic Crisis” were held at Roatation Exhibition Room, Thai Cultural Centre. The first exhibition was on the theme “ From Economic Crisis into IMF age” Food items that lkare cultural legacies from various communities were among the exhibits.

The second exhibition was on the theme “Thai Fabrics.” About 33 research findings on Thai fabrics ie. Fabrics of Thai thnics, fabarics in daily life, fabrics in religion, fabrics in the Royal Court and fabrics in the globalization agae.

Besides being informative, the two exhibitions have kwon the public sympathy and support that Thai culture has a meaningful function to put the country back to normalcy again.

13. Sale of consummable goods at economy prices. Bureau of Goods, Loxley Co. and Siam Ex-land were invited to set up stalls selling rice sugar, vegetable oil etc. to the public at economy prices as part of the prgroamme to help people buy necessities at friendship or economy prices.

14. Comic Strip Contest was organized as one of the activities of the second exhibition. The theme of the contest based on “Sombat Pudee” (Markings of good taste ) was designed to encourage children at the lower and upper secondary school ages to express themselves artistically .

15. Character Development Project. The Office of the National Culture Commission in conjunction with the Thai International Airways (Public Co.) organized training for character development through demonstration and simulation to those who are interested and enrolled in the project.

The Office of the National Culture Comission has the mission to generate public awareness of the need to unite their efforts, to muster their cultural capitals to weather economic crisis and put the country on the road to recovery.