After four years, the Baan Nong Tao School has attracted many educators who want to learn about the school's experiment and to initiate a similar programme elsewhere. The Community Forests Support Group, meanwhile, produces its own media which includes newsletters, books and music tapes to tackle public preconceptions and prejudices against hilltribe people. The group also invites Thailand's top artists to visit forest communities. The paintings from the trips are sold to raise funds for forest conservation activities. But information alone is often not enough to change attitudes.
Art is a powerful medium.
So is personal experience. Every year the group takes city residents to visit forest communities, hoping that their first-hand experience will make them understand the hill people better. When the group took on a massive challenge by ordaining 50 million trees to celebrate the 50th anniversary of His Majesty the King's accession to the throne in 1996, city people were also invited to join their ceremonies. For a change, city people will have a chance to listen to the hill people's se of the story instead of passing swift judgements,'' she added. Winning new friends, the Community Forests Support Group has more than 2,000 members nationwe.