In 2001 we saw an opportunity: give people the possibility to share in the technical and information development. Access to information and education means empowering people to live a better life and giving countries a chance to reduce poverty.
OpenmindProjects was initially called IT in Isan (northeast Thailand is called Isan) We set up some pilot projects in 2001 and 2002 based on which we started inviting overseas volunteers to help local schools, initially in Thailand. Volunteers were encouraged to use modern pedagogical thinking and the focus was on English and ICT. Learning to understand and speak English rather than perfecting grammar and learning to use computers and Internet as a learning tool.
Since the start in 2001 over a thousand volunteers from of all over the world have joined the volunteer training in NongKhai to go out to help poor schools, orphanages, community projects where they help and involve the local population in learning, mainly English and computer skills, to give them an opportunity to improve their lives.
We support these skills development efforts by training overseas volunteers during 3 intense days at our training and learning center in NongKhai which is designed to host a number of local trainees, from Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, hill tribes with no nationality. We invite them to stay with us for longer or shorter periods to improve their computers kills, English and to meet with and socialize with people from all over the world so they can go on to better jobs or go on to study at a higher level. They are all coming from poor backgrounds mainly the field projects we support.
