Thai Communities Committed to Alcohol-Free Festivals

Continuing effort in building an alcohol-free community from 2006 to celebrate the King’s 60th year anniversary on the throne, Mahasarakam province has tied in alcohol-free celebrations with several community events such as abstaining from drinking alcohol during Buddhist Lent and Alcohol-Free Tod Katin. –link to Campaign page Buddhist Lent and Tod Katin section. During their annual Red Cross festival, Boon Berk Fha, in 2006, they committed to have an Alcohol-Free event. The community refused to accept any sponsorship from an alcohol company and ban alcohol sale in the event area. As a result, number of incidents including arguments and traffic accidents had significantly decreased.

This year, the festival was held during January 23rd to February 1st, 2009.  The community continued to make this as an Alcohol-Free festival. The alcohol ban also included gift, prize and give away from raffles and other games in the event.

In addition, Ubonrachathanee and Surin provinces have been committing to organize an alcohol-free annual Red Cross festival in their communities. Other provinces in the Northern and NorthEastern regions of Thailand are considering in organizing an alcohol-free annual festival for their communities.      

Note: Thailand has 76 provinces. Each province generally has an annual festival tied in with each community’s highlighted historical activities. For example, Khon Kaen has annual Silk Festival because they are well known in making silk. Surin has annual Elephant Festival because there are a lot of elephants in this province and they are famous in training elephants. Many of the community annual festivals are tied in with Red Cross, as the fund raised during the events will be used for charity purpose. These events generally have many entertaining activities, restaurants, shops, carnivals, and exhibitions.