The Orientation Workshop on the Information Technology (IT) in Asian Co-operative Project was conducted for the Credit Union League of Thailand ( CULT) a member of the Asian Women in Co-operative Development Forum (AWCF) in Thailand. It was held at the CULT Training Center, Bangkok, Thailand on 13-14 December 2004. This workshop is part of the programmed activities of “it@coops” Information Technology in Asian Co-operatives project , a joint project between the Capacity Building International Germany (InWent) and AWCF with funding support from German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation Development.

The Social Marketing Workshop Aims to orient co-op leaders, managers and staff to become more aware of the information technology concerns and opportunities as well as the state of information technology in the CULT network. At the end of the two days workshop it is expected that participants shall be able to decide whether or not to establish the ICT program and business development center and to commit resources to implement the ICT program in their co-operatives.

There were fifty four participants who attended the workshop, 30 were women and 24 were men. There were 9 Credit Unions and five CULT Branches and three other organizations that were represented in this workshop. CULT Management Staff and leaders also attended the workshop.

To grace the opening of the workshop, Mr. Kasem Janthasorn, Vice-Chairperson of CULT, Mr. Sahaphon Sangmek, General Manager of CULT, Ms. Corinna von Hartrott, Project Manager, InWent-Cologne and Mr. Rey Naranja of InWent-ASEAN, Ms Sally Ganibe, Regional Coordinator of AWCF and Ms Angie Valdez of AWCF delivered their messages.

The other partners in the project, Mr. Cresente Paez, Executive Officer of NATCCO of the Philippines and Ms Naning Mardiniah of FORMASI of Indonesia also shared their experiences related to the project and gave their inspiring messages to the participants.

The introduction of the Partner Organizations and project orientation were presented by Ms Corinna von Hartrott and Ms Sally Ganibe. While the ICT situation in Thailand and in the CULT Network was presented by Ms Ummarapron Pora and her colleague, Consultants of Training Concepts of Singapore. She also discussed the results of the training needs assessment conducted by InWent through Training Concepts.

The group workshop, facilitated by Ms Kruewan Boonrin, Manager of the Training & Education Department of CULT, encouraged the participants to share their opinions and recommendations on how credit unions can benefit from ICT application and how the credit unions can contribute to make the IT program a success.

The participants realized the benefits of ICT application in co-operatives in various forms including the application in Business Development Center. All of the Credit Unions will participate in this project and some big Credit Unions will allocate budget and contribute materials, venue, equipment and hardware for the IT project at the co-op level. They also committed to share the results of the workshop to their respective co-operative leaders. Lastly they are most thankful to CULT, AWCF, InWEnt and BMZ.

Ms Wandee Panyavannasiri was hired on December, 2005 to replace Mr. Bordin, primarily to take care of the preparation, organization, implementation and monitoring of the different activities to be conducted in the country which includes among others the running of the training programme and setting up of the ICTBased Business Development Center and the virtual networking.

COMPUTER LABORATORY

The project provided the necessary fund to rent a fully equipped computer laboratory to facilitate the conduct of the training programme. The functional IT Training Center is located in the first floor of the CULT Building.

There are a total of twenty participants representing, Sung Samakkee CU, Pattanachumchon ban Putabag CU, ChumChon Klongchan CU, Emangpermpunzap CU, Watyangkhaoyoi CU, Ban Dung Samakkee CU, Mong Kon Sethhe CU, Huaykhanag-Thungna CU, Ban Sang Arun CU, Suwannaphum CU, CULT-National Office and all regional branches in Thailand.