We started with IT learning for poor students in Thailand
OpenmindProjects is a nonprofit, charity, founded in Thailand in2002, and has since helped underprivileged people in Southeast Asia. A local and global network of local staff, trainees, as well as volunteers, friends and alumni help us. We mainly help poor children at schools, our camps and own place.
Covid disrupted, so we launched online training. Now we work to restart our preCovid projects and welcome volunteers and depend on donations to support our work.
Opportunities for local students and overseas volunteers
Our opportunities for underprivileged young students.
Many young but poor, local people have come to learn with us over the years. They learn English and to use computers and internet to learn about the world.
Makes for opportunities for volunteers.
Volunteers come to help young people and OpenmindProjects, while they get to learn about life and culture in SE Asia.
Volunteers and donations support our work.
Volunteers and donors support our projects. Many thanks!
But we need more volunteers and funding to restart more of our pre-Covid projects!
We restarted to help young in Thailand but we want to restart elsewhere, including our very popular camps so, we need volunteers and donations! So
Please donate
Please volunteer
OpenmindProjects founders Sven and Gaweechat
East meets West!
Sven from Sweden and Gaweechat from Thailand, set out to find how IT and internte could help the poor schoolchilren.
Bridging knowledge divides using IT, internet and English together with volunteers and local people.
About Sven in a Swedish newspaper.
Gaweechat grew up without electricity and got a chance to learn to use computers and believes in learning by doing.
Some Milestones
Once upon a time
IT in Isan was a pioneer project in Northeast Thailand, based on the idea that IT can be poor students best friend. Demonstrate, Explore and Discover to teach and learn and share with friends.
This project became OpenmindProjects and believe in Learning by Doing.
Covid disrupted our work. Before Covid we had hosted and trained some 400 Thai, Lao, Burmese and Khmer students as our trainees at our Center. Over 3000 young students from Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia joined our over 80 Learning Camps. We supported many schools around Thailand and Laos, even in Cambodia and Nepal.
Volunteers and donations were always very important!
During Covid we started helping disabled students and arranged local camps for village and dropout students.
Now we welcome volunteers back to help, but it takes time. We need more volunteers and donations to restart all our work.
Welcome back after Covid, local students and overseas volunteers!
During Covid we managed to arrange online training for schools, disabled and other students. We also managed to arrange camps for village and drop out students. OpenmindProjects local alumni supported us.
Before Covid we held our first Mountain Camps for migrant and refugee youth along the Thai-Myanmar border.
We won a Tourism Authority of Thailand campaign, “The Little Big Project”, receiving $5,000 USD which we donated to an endangered sea turtles project.
We arranged our first Learning Camps at our Training Center in Thailand.
Young OpenmindProjects campers started the We Love OpenmindProjects Facebook Group.
We started working with Burmese and Karen and stateless on the Thai-Myanmar border.
We were nvited to the Stockholm Challenge, ICT for Development. Sponsors helped us go to Sweden.
We visited Cambodia and Nepal, deciding to work with local projects and inviting students to our Training Center.
CNN decided to recommend OpenmindProjects for their global ‘Be Your Own Change‘ initiative, many thanks!
After the tsunami, OpenmindProjects and our volunteers were early to help local people together with Rotary.
We were invited and agreed to support school and eco-projects in Laos,
And made a website and video to invite volunteers to our project in Thailand that was recommended by Lonely Planet!
Many years ago we changed our name from IT in Isan to OpenmindProjects and designed our first website to invite volunteers to help.
Our initiatives were featured in the Bangkok Post and recognized by UNESCO.
We wrote about ecotourism in Bangkok Post, ‘Going Ethno in Isan‘.
We were invited by the Asian Development Bank to a conference, ‘Closing Gaps in the Digital Divide‘, at the Asian Institute of Technology and presented our work .
