A Woman's Life Flows on

How an outspoken village woman is breaking the stigma and stopping the spread of HIV in Thailand's most vulnerable communities

Thailand is still a place where most people infected with HIV/AIDS try to hide the condition as a shameful secret. A lack of government support for AIDS education and healthcare, and die-hard attitudes that the disease is associated with bad karma, don't exactly lend a supportive atmosphere for people to seek help. In small villages with little money for higher education and modern medicine, these problems are magnified.

Like most women living with HIV in small Thai villages, Pimjai Intamoon of Chiangmai's Don Kaew village contracted the virus from her husband 15 years ago. To date, 30 members of the village, including Pimjai's husband, have perished from diseases intensified by the condition. For a community with a population of only about 200, that is quite a high percentage. Other Northern Thai villages face similar circumstances, and there are about 860 known cases of HIV/AIDS among them today.

What originally began as Pimjai's effort to help herself and fellow AIDS victims in her village support themselves, is now a flourishing community project benefiting the entire Don Kaew village and helping HIV patients in all villages of Northern Thailand. It has drawn attention from domestic and foreign NGOs, and is helping raise awareness of AIDS across the entire Thai kingdom.

Pimjai: Thankful for HIV

At the time Pimjai contracted HIV, knowledge of the condition among fellow villagers and even the city people of Chiangmai was abysmally scant. At a noodle shop on one occasion, Pimjai was asked to pay for her bowl and spoon, and when she got up to leave, they tried to sterilize her chair by pouring boiling water on it.

While many people might have crumbled under such social ostracizing, Pimjai was undaunted, and has become a symbol of courage to other people in Thailand suffering from HIV. Her outspokenness at a time when HIV was considered even more shameful than it is today led to newspaper articles and television appearances. Today, she still receives phone calls and letters from people all over Thailand and even from other countries, seeking her advice.

Contracting HIV might have been the best thing to have happened in her life, Pimjai says. It has strengthened her appreciation of life, and given her a purpose: to help others with HIV, and educate people on how to prevent it.

Pimjai, 39, was born and raised in Don Kaew Village and has a fourth grade education. Her family did not own a rice farm in the village, so she and her parents, six brothers and sisters lived by gathering mushrooms and other edibles from the forest. When she grew older, she learned to weld, and lined up with other villagers to ride trucks into the city as day laborers on construction sites.

At 23 she married, and contracted HIV shortly thereafter. Although she continued to meditate and practice peaceful acceptance of life's hurdles, life was certainly not easy. Her husband began to suffer from full-blown AIDS, and her aged mother also needed care. She continued to work as a welder. And she was pregnant. At that time, an abortion was the best option, but it greatly saddened her.

She had a motorbike with a sidecar, and began taking her husband and other neighbors infected with HIV to a clinic in Chiangmai. Here, she learned more about HIV and AIDS, and was given advice and ideas for ways to make a supplemental income.

'Keys' to the Door of Opportunity

Pimjai and a few neighbors gathered in her parent's home to begin making key chains to sell as souvenirs. While the project was not very profitable, it was the launch-point for bonding among villagers with and without HIV. Awareness was rising. More people joined the group, raising productivity, and soon they were making other items to sell. The word got out. People in other villages and in Chiangmai were talking about this unique approach.

Pimjai asked the Thai-Australian AIDS Prevention for Upper Northern Thailand (NAPAC) foundation to offer financial support. The group was impressed with her coordinating skills and the business records she kept, and agreed. The following year, out of the blue, representatives from the Terre Des Somme foundation of the Netherlands arrived at Don Kaew Village, looking for Pimjai. They offered financial support to build a functional workshop on the village grounds. Soon, NHK TV interviewed Pimjai, prompting a Japanese NGO to visit Don Kaew. The Japanese Foundation of AIDS Prevention installed its "Teddy Bear Project" where villagers manufacture stuffed animals that sell in Japan.

Over the years, other organizations have offered advice and support, including UNICEF Thailand, the Labor and Social Benefits Bureau of Chiangmai, the Thai Cultural Center and the Chiangmai Health Service Office. Pimjai and the Don Kaew villagers receive regular visits from distinguished guests such as representatives from the World Bank and the U.N. However, not one, single Thai government official has set foot on the grounds. Pimjai knows her work is far from finished.

It's No Sweatshop

On a typical day, a visitor will find about 15 to 20 women gathered casually in the village workshop-some at the sewing machines, others on a floor mat. A playpen or two might be set up nearby. It's like walking into a large, homey living room filled with colorful crafts, where the women socialize while they work. Just outside, trees and the sounds of nature offer the familiar environment of their village, tucked away off a dirt road a good distance from Mae Rim Highway. This is where their homes are, and the work belongs to all of them. Those with HIV are able to rest at will. This is no sweatshop.

They make stuffed animals (many of which Pimjai has designed herself) and various hand-bags that they sell themselves at the Night Bazaar and Tha Pae Road Sunday walking street, and distribute to about 15 foreign and domestic NGOs. They currently have a contract with a well-known silk shop to make silk dolls, and will distribute a catalog in Japan featuring 150 stuffed animal designs.

Proceeds from Pimjai's "Project for Community Health" go toward hospital care and treatment, especially medicines intended for viral resistance, treatment and prevention of complications, and physical maintenance. Project activities include house call counseling and group meetings, spiritual rehabilitation, coordination with hospitals for AIDS care and treatment, as well as applying local wisdom and beliefs and researching herbal medicinal benefits for treatment.

A portion of the profits is pumped back into the project for future growth, as NGO assistance will not last forever.

Looking Ahead

Pimjai knows the project can't depend entirely on support from the NGOs, and much of their product is indeed dependent on Chiangmai tourism. In the high season, each worker earns about 150 baht a day. Less during the low season.

Using other villages in the south as a model, Pimjai coordinated a savings activity to promote knowledge about banking and greater unity among villagers. Much like a credit union, the savings group consists of about 260 members that can draw from a 500,000 baht pot and pay back with interest. A wider, community fundraising activity is also in the works. Several other villages participate by forming their own savings sub-groups, then contributing to the community pot.

These funds may be used in future plans that involve capitalizing on the elephant and rafting attractions near the village. Some villagers already offer homestay to tourists interested in those activities. A gallery outlet to sell village products to the tourists is also planned, but requires about 50,000 baht to complete construction.

Meanwhile, Pimjai has compiled a recipe book of herbal medicines after much consultation with older women in northern Thai villages. Published in Thai, the book is scheduled to begin selling this month.

HIV has certainly brought sorrow to Pimjai's life, but she doesn't feel sorrowful because it moved her life in a new direction. When she sees others benefiting from her work, she feels good.

The Facts About Transmission

As in some parts of the west, many Thai government officials, leaders and even educators are still sorely unaware of how the AIDS virus is transmitted. In ignorance, they tend to verbally chastise the AIDS population, and sometimes even punish the most innocent victims of the disease, expelling HIV-infected children from school for example. Such gestures only reinforce fear and ignorance among the general population, which looks to its leaders for guidance.

AIDS is not some powerful airborne virus that can be transmitted just from sitting on the same chair, or even drinking from the same glass or eating from the same spoon. It can only be contracted through blood, such as sharing needles, and bodily fluids through unprotected sexual contact.

Insect bites, casual contact, shared food, saliva, sweat and tears don't spread HIV. Three studies in the U.S., Europe and Africa have shown that AIDS is not transmitted by everyday activities, even among people in close living arrangements. AIDS is a difficult disease to contract, and even the intimate exposure common among small children living together is not sufficient to transmit the virus.