Boonreung Phupanna

Boonreung Phupanna, a beauty salon owner, has created a ground-breaking program that brings monks and lay people together to stem the spread of the AIDS virus and to fight the social stigma associated with the disease.

Boonreung Phupanna is responding to Thailand's lack of a comprehensive support structure for people with AIDS by allying respected religious leaders with AIDS patients, their families, and widows to fight against prejudice and discrimination. Boonreung encourages Buddhist monks to educate and counsel people in their communities about the HIV virus and its prevention. Her program has established cooperation between villages and temples in many districts in the north and northeast of Thailand, where the illicit sex trade and HIV infection have spread rapidly.Buddhist monks are among the most trusted and respected members of Thai communities. Traditionally they help individuals deal with issues of death and dying. Therefore, their involvement brings credibility and seriousness to the AIDS discussion – a topic rife with rumor and faulty misinformation. Boonreung's project successfully brings monastic and lay people together to support and educate people with HIV and AIDS, those who have lost family members to AIDS, and those who are at risk of contracting the disease. Her group is the first in Thailand whose members disclose publicly that they have the AIDS virus. This has helped to demystify the illness and has led to better understanding and social support for the families of AIDS patients.

The AIDS epidemic has caused serious health and social problems for millions of Thais. In Thailand, AIDS patients and their families are thought of as useless and unclean. They are inappropriately treated, stigmatized, and often outcast in their communities. For this reason, most HIV positive people do not reveal to their communities that they have contracted the disease. In general, there is little accurate information or understanding of the disease and most people refuse to discuss it.

The National Economic and Social Development Committee estimates that in 2001, approximately 900,000 people will contract HIV and about 73,000 will die of AIDS. Each year, 17,000 newborn babies in Thailand contract HIV from their mothers. It is also estimated that in 2001, the number of children under 15 whose mothers will have died of AIDS will reach 109,000. Five years later, this number will increase to 232,000. When a parent dies of AIDS, the children and the surviving parent face many social and economic difficulties just trying to survive.

Boonreung started by working with outcast AIDS widows and their families to help them improve their situation and to do community outreach about the disease. However, she soon realized that if she could enlist the help of local monks, her education efforts would be strengthened immensely. Initially, the Abbot of Doi Saket temple was reluctant to get involved because AIDS is related to sexual behavior and because Boonreung and her peers were mostly women. (Traditionally Thai monks are celibate and are prohibited from touching women or even being seen with them in private. This restriction applies even to monks's mothers.) During the three years it took her to convince the abbot to take a leading role, many of the Abbot's followers protested because they felt it would be disgraceful for a high-ranking monk to be involved with Boonreung's efforts. Boonreung overcame this opposition by bringing AIDS patients and their families to see the Abbot for advice and financial help. Direct contact with people affected by the AIDS epidemic convinced the Abbot to support her project. She also mentioned the Abbot's name whenever her project was publicized, thereby connecting him to the project. Once the Abbot became her partner in the project, other monks followed.

Together, Boonreung and the Abbot of Doi Saket set up the Foundation for Mercy and Generosity, which has become a model of cooperation between villagers and temples. The Abbot became the president of the foundation, which brings great credibility and dignity to the work. As the district's head monk, he is in a position to set policies for the monks in district temples to participate in the AIDS education programs.

Boonreung has spread her idea to many districts in the north and is currently starting new projects in Kalasin, her hometown province in the northeast, where she trains the monks who attend the Monks College to be AIDS counselors. Her network now consists of 87 temples which provide counseling about HIV to lay people. Her projects are financed through work with the temples, funds from the Ministry of Health, and a few international organizations.

Boonreung's work is slowly changing the attitudes of monks in the districts where she has been active. She encourages them to become exposed to social problems and actively participate in solving them. Her work is also changing the image and status of women according to traditional religious belief. Her alliance with the monks and the fact that they work side by side has had an enormous influence despite being highly unconventional. Boonreung has paved the way for women to work with monks on social issues.

Boonreung grew up in a simple rural environment, and has struggled to make a better life for herself since she was very young. After finishing compulsory education she was forced to leave her own family to work as a domestic laborer for a Chinese family in town. During that time she studied at night in order to finish her secondary schooling. After Boonrueng completed secondary school, she went to Bangkok and worked in a factory. In her free time she enrolled in a hairdressing course. She married in 1976 and has two children. In 1985, her family moved to Chiang Mai province, where she opened a beauty shop. Because her own life experiences had been so difficult, Boonreung was sympathetic to the struggles of the people who came into her salon, including those who had been affected by the AIDS epidemic.

Boonreung attended a training session for beauty salon workers organized by the Contagious Disease Control Division of the Ministry of Public Health. She was the only salon owner to open her doors to people with AIDS. By serving them, she learned about their suffering and the discrimination against them. Since then, she has worked relentlessly to help the AIDS patients and to educate the general public about their situation. She faced many problems during the developmental stages of her projects, but she learned from these difficulties and eventually tried new strategies.