Results of human resources development and management through socio-economic activities in the way of non-formal education that have effects on knowledge, attitudes, and occupational skills of HIV infected children and families affected from AIDS of AIDS non-governmental organizations.

• Author: Suwannarurk, Jidapa
• Position: Report

1. INTRODUCTION

   One of the neglected problems of AIDS is HIV infected children as they probably are orphans living their lives alone being faced with problems by themselves. Some of them may stay with their grandparents. When the grandparents die, they will have no one. Many of them are not able to have education and consequently they are ignored and disliked in the society.

   The AIDS Non-Governmental Organization located in the north-eastern part of Thailand has realized such problems and attempted to assist the children and their families by creating activities based on a non-formal education concept for developing human resources.

   Thus, in this study the results of management of human resources development through socioeconomic activities in the way of non-formal education that have effects on knowledge, attitudes, and occupational skills of HIV infected children and families affected from AIDS of the AIDS Non-Governmental Organization in Buri-ram Province, Thailand are examined in order to measure whether the activities' successes are in line with the their objectives and to what extent the evaluation express the successes or the objectives' achievements. Also, it is advantageous in that this can be used as useful information for relevant people to improve their future operation.

2. RESEARCH

   The objectives of this study are to 1. synthesize problems and challenges before holding the activities, 2. evaluate effectiveness of the activities' major goal achievements, 3. evaluate readiness of factors or resources employed in such activities, 4. evaluate the operations in those activities and achievements of socio-economic activities on the basis of non-formal education which are 4.1. the activity of health and sanitation and food security, 4.2. the activity of education and social development, 4.3. the activity of establishing occupational skills to facilitate increase of income and to reduce poverty, 4.4. the activity of preventing HIV/AIDS and protect the children using principles of children's rights and rights of human beings, and 4.5. participations and satisfactions of the children and the families taking part in the activities, communities, governmental sector, and civil society, and 5. study possible coordination methods with the aim of connecting the activities held by the AIDS Non-Governmental Organization with structures of governmental welfares and civil society.

   With reference to data collection, the instruments used in this study were face-to-face interview, self-administrative questionnaire, in-depth interview, focus group discussion, and group interview. The populations are targeted children and families in Nang Rong District, Chalerm Phra Kiaj District, and Chamni District in Buri-ram Province. The children are AIDS orphans and the families are affected by AIDS. 214 of the populations are children while 154 of them are adults. Pertaining to the samples, purposive sampling technique was exploited. 49% of the populations are selected: 167 are children, 15 are adults, 5 are officials working for the AIDS Non-Governmental Organization in Buri-ram Province, 26 are local teachers and 15 school teachers, 1 chief executive of sub-district administrative organization, 1 district public health staff member, 3 hospital officers, and 1 officer working in the area of social development and human security.

   In connection with synthesis of problems and challenges, it is found that areas in the north-eastern part of Thailand people living there are faced with drought, poverty and immigration problems. Even though they move to work to other places, most of them still have a close relationship with their family. Therefore, they are likely to come back to their hometown. Particularly; when a number of them are infected with HIV, they decide to go back home. These days, the people burden elders with their children who are orphans or HIV infected children.

   Hence, increasing potentials of targeted families is the aim of operating such activities. The activities are 1. the activity of health and sanitation and food security, 2. the activity of education and social development, 3. the activity of establishing occupational skills to facilitate increase of income and to reduce poverty, and 4. the activity of preventing HIV/AIDS and protect the children using principles of children's rights and rights of human beings. So, staff members operating these activities must be highly responsible and able to well solve unexpected problems.

   In Buri-ram Province, there are Thailand HIV non-governmental organization and international one. Both of them collaboratively work to complete the activities. As follows are the results of the activities' evaluations.

1. Concerning the activity of health and sanitation and food security, it revealed that 144 of the children and the family in the target groups are healthier (76%). In relation to health and sanitation, the target groups are provided with useful knowledge and information so that they can make most use of them to change their behaviors of health and sanitation. Such knowledge and information are, for example, about proper and clean food consumption and venereal diseases. Besides, their houses are visited in order to see betterment of their application. As to nutrition and...