Prateep Ungsongtham Hata
Prateep Ungsongtham Hata (Template:Lang-th, born 9 August 1952) is a Thai activist noted for her work with slum dwellers in the Khlong Toey district of Bangkok, Thailand. A former Senator for Bangkok, she was awarded the 1978 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service. She is Secretary General of the Duang Prateep Foundation.
Life
Prateep was born in the Klong Toey Slum in Bangkok. Prateep Ungsongtham spent four years at primary school and then started working. As a 12-year-old worker she began to save from meagre wages to pay for secondary education at night school.
Because most slum children could not go to a regular school, Prateep opened her own One Baht a Day School at her home. She spent much time helping children and their families to cope with the conditions of slum life.
When the slum dwellers were threatened with eviction by the Port Authority of Thailand (PAT) Prateep pushed for a compromise solution, and the PAT made a new site available 1 km away.
In 1976 Prateep completed her education with a Diploma of Education from Suan Dusit Teachers College.
In 1978 Prateep received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service. She used the prize money to establish the Duang Prateep Foundation (DPF) and became its Secretary General.
In 1980 she became the first Asian citizen to receive the John D. Rockefeller Youth Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mankind. With the prize money she established[1]
In 1987 she married the Japanese citizen Mr. Tatsuya Hata.
In 1992 she became a committee member of the Confederation for Democracy and one of the leaders of the opposition to the then ruling military dictatorship of General Suchinda Kraprayoon.
In Thailand's first direct election of the Senate in the year 2000, she won a seat in this chamber of parliament. She used her position to advocate the rights of the poor and discriminated people on political level.
In 2004 she received the The World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child from Queen Silvia of Sweden.
After the coup d'état in Thailand 2006, she bacame a supporter of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship ("Red Shirts"). During the , she belonged to the more moderate wing of the movement and was concerned to see the militant tendencies within the group.[2] Her commitment to the "Red Shirts" and the political polarisation in Thailand led to a decline of donations for her Duang Prateep Foundation from within the country. Some regular donors who are affiliated with the opposite political camp refused to give to an organisation headed by a "Red Shirt" and stopped their payments.[3]
References
- Citation for Pratheep Ungsongtham Hata from the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation Online
- BIOGRAPHY of Prateep Ungsongtham-Hata
External links
- Duang Prateep Foundation
- World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child 2004
- the Foundation for Slum Child Care
- ^ the Foundation for Slum Child Care
- ^ Patrick Winn (17 May 2010), "Thailand: Will It Be Civil War?", The Atlantic
- ^ Achara Ashayagachat (20 October 2012), "Undoing the damage", Bangkok Post