Innovation for Developing the Management Systems and Mechanism to Strengthen the Communities in Developing Grassroots Economy Based on Social Capital to Solve Poverty Problems Comprehensively and Sustainably: A Case Study of Ban Sai Ngam, Na Siao Subdistrict, Mueang District, Chaiyaphum Province

Abstract

The objectives of this research were 1) to study the spatial poverty situations in Ban Sai Ngam, Na Siao Subdistrict, Mueang District, Chaiyaphum Province, 2) to study the community strengthening by using social capital as a base to solve the poverty problems, and 3) to obtain the innovation for developing the management systems and mechanism to strengthen the communities to solve the poverty problems. The samples were 109 participants: community leaders, residents living in Ban Sai Ngam, enterprises, and representatives from Sub District Administration Organizations. The research was conducted by using the qualitative research methodology.  

The research findings were as follows.

1. The residents in the communities were poor and burdened with debts. The water sources for agriculture were insufficient for farming. The costs of living and farming increased. The arable lands were few. The access to government welfare, education, and health were difficult. The poverty problems could be divided into 3 types: the problems that the villagers could deal with, the problems that the villagers could not deal with, and the problems that the villagers and the external organizations joined and managed to solve the problems together.
2. The strengthening of the communities using social capital consisted of 1) human capital: community leaders, group leaders, group members, and folk philosophers, having knowledge, skills, expertise, and intellect in agriculture, herb, soil, and organic fertilizer, 2) social capital: people in communities having the ways of lives in mutually depending on each other and knowing each other every house, having relationship in the relative systematic pattern, trusting each other, loving and harmonizing stably, and being empowerment in driving various learning processes for community members, 3) physical capital: community rice mills and organic fertilizer production groups that linked to occupational groups in communities such as herbal groups, large-scale rice field groups, and beef cattle groups, 4) natural capital: Lam Huai Bong, a community forest (Sa Kae forest) with the land of 30 rai to be natural seasonal food sources, and 5) economic capital: village funds, saving groups for production, women’s groups, the Mother of the Land Fund, Saccha Savings groups, and saving groups for communities and 6) wisdom and cultural capital: cultures and traditions that made the residents in the communities harmonizing and knowledge, wisdom, and expertise in the herbal treatment.
3. The innovation for developing the management systems and mechanism to strengthen the communities in developing grassroots economy based on social capital to solve poverty problems comprehensively and sustainably was that the social capital was used to solve the poverty problems through the participatory processes in all of the operation steps related to each other and linked together systematically based on the quality development processes of PDCA consisting of the planning process (Plan), the operation based on planning (Do), checking(Check) and improving the operation to be appropriate or creating new standards to increase the quality levels (Act) through the community potential. In addition, the innovation based on the social capital also included the leaders, the learning processes, the management, the improvement of the use, and the participatory network cooperation.