Mechai Viravaidya, founder and president of Population and Community Development Association (PDA) has built the largest and most successful development NGO in Thailand.
Bixby Chair, Malcolm Potts has been honored with an annual internship for graduate students in his name with the Community Development Association if Thailand. The Malcolm Potts Internship honors Dr. Potts’ influential and prominent contribution to Thailand’s Public Health challenges particularly with regards to family planning and reproductive health. To recognize these contributions, an internship position will be offered to a graduate student at University of California, Berkeley who demonstrates creative and innovating thinking and commitment to alleviate poverty.
Mechai Viravaidya, founder and president of Population and Community Development Association (PDA) has built the largest and most successful development NGO in Thailand. Population and Development International (PDI) is the US not-for-profit registered arm of PDA. Using humor and good business practice, PDA introduced voluntary family planning on a large scale helping lower the Thai fertility rate from over 6 in the 1970s to 1.5 today. PDA played the central role in hating the spread of HIV in Thailand. Mechai believes that most foreign aid is unsustainable and breeds dependency.
Examples of programs that Malcolm Potts Interns can study and promote:
• PDI is developing Village Partnerships building on the social responsibility of corporations and the entrepreneurial skills of the village to develop small businesses to lift communities out of poverty.
• PDI and PDA have developed for-profit companies to support and sustain non-profit development initiatives.
• PDI has founded a school for village children unlike any other.
For more information about the internship contact Claire Norris, Bixby Center for Population, Health and Sustainability, cnorris@berkeley.edu