Mae Fah Luang Foundation under Royal Patronage is a Thai non-profit organization that works to create new opportunities for people to emerge from the vicious cycle of poverty, turn away from illicit livelihoods such as the cultivation of poppy for opium and build new lives in harmony with their environment, by ‘helping the people to help themselves’.
The MFLF has carried out activities in the areas of health, livelihood training, and education and applied the concept of social entrepreneurship – establishing five different social businesses under the Doi Tung brand whose profits are redirected towards social development activities for the community. The holistic and integrated area-based approach which puts the local community at the center of their own development process has resulted in significant improvement in the overall well-being of the community – economically, socially, and environmentally.
Based on the success of the project, the Foundation led the implementation of this approach in several outreach projects both in Thailand and abroad, namely Myanmar, Afghanistan and Indonesia. It has also been the forefront in promoting social enterprises in Thailand through policy advocacy and spearheaded the initiative to officially establish the network of social enterprises in Thailand as an association called “SE Thailand”
