- Published Date: 02/03/2020
- by: UNDP
“Media for Citizenship Application Team” Youth from Chiang Mai who fight for stateless people’s rights
To build their own identity, stateless people have to face several obstacles for example “the process takes too much time”, “many cases are being avoided and postponed”, “high expenses” “exploitation by middlemen.” These are the reasons why 3 stateless youth from Chiang Mai ; Chart – Suchart Ingtha, Eak – Pathiparn Nalong and Tee – Tee Nayord formed a team to create educational media about citizenship application by participating Youth Co :Lab Thailand 2019 competition and won the 3rd place.
“We can’t approach the citizenship application” that’s where the project starts
Media for Citizenship Application Team : There are a great amount of stateless persons in Chiang Mai including us. According to Thai government’s regulations, stateless persons can apply for Thai citizenship if they are qualified but what really happen nowadays is that.. there are still a lot of us who don’t understand the process and can’t follow up the procedures caused by several factors like limited knowledge, limited budget or exploitation. By not being able to have the nationality, we have lost opportunity in life and lost access to the basic rights.
In the past years, we’ve observed that people who succeeded in applying for nationality status are mostly the people who get society attention and are on media coverage.
Focus on every step to create better communications for stateless people
Media for Citizenship Application Team : What we’d like to do is to create a forum where we can share contents and knowledge between stateless people. We plan to create educational videos about citizenship application. The contents will include the procedures , the conditions , the law and the preparation we need for the application. There will be “a talk column” where we can update our applications’ status while the case that has problems will be reapplied into the process. To make a short documentary, we will request cooperation from the government and civil society in the area to observe the process closely. Along with the citizenship application video, there will be documentaries about stateless people’s cultures and ways of life so that community can understand and be aware of the situation.
“Well-being” “Quality Education” “Economic Growth” “Non-Discrimination”
These are the rights that stateless people deserve.
Media for Citizenship Application Team : We work under Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) no.16 which is “Guarantee Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions” Our campaign can help stateless people access to their basic rights just like other people in majority of the country which can lead to better living standard according to other objectives of SDGs for example objective no.3 “Establish Good Health and Well-Being” no. 4 “Provide Quality Education” since currently stateless people can’t equally apply to any schools they want to. And last but not least no. 8 “Create Decent Work and Economic Growth” because to have the citizenship means there’s no professions limit against our will.
The end goal is that “Every state people have the equal access to citizenship application”
Media for Citizenship Application Team : Our end goal is that every state people have the equal access to citizenship application without exploitation during the procedures. Also ,we hope that the potential leader of community can spread knowledge about citizenship application and train other people in the community to produce media by themselves to communicate the situation with the public.
The secondary goal is that community acknowledges the existence of stateless people without prejudice that we are a threat.
Inspiration to improve society is what we get from Youth Co:Lab Thailand 2019
Media for Citizenship Application Team : The day we got contacted by the staffs, we were super happy and excited. At first we didn’t think about competitions or anything. To be 1 of the 10 teams from all over the country makes us feel grateful already. We just wanted to share the problems we’re facing. It was so nice to meet contestants from the rest 9 teams , to meet people who have the same ideology , same perspective to help each other create peaceful society. By participating the programme, “we feel hope.” There’re people who fight side by side with us and we are not alone. Although the thing that we’re trying do is hard to achieve, this price means the first giant step closer to our success. We’d like to say thank you to all the staffs and friends who have made this event happen.
#UNDP # UCxUNDP #RespectDifferences #EmbraceDiversity #YouthCoLab2019
#YouthCoLabThailand #PVE #PreventingViolentExtremism #SocialInnovatio #SDG