How Mr. Condom made Thailand a better place - Mechai Viravaidya

[Music] [Music] Welcome to Thailand.

Now, when I was a young man 40 years ago, the country was very, very poor, with lots and lots and lots of people living in poverty. We decided to do something about it, but we didn't begin with a welfare program or a poverty reduction program; we began with a family planning program following a very successful maternal child health activity set of activities.

So basically, no one would accept family planning if their children didn't survive. So the first step was to get to the children, get to the mothers, and then follow up with family planning. Not just child mortality alone; you need also family planning.

Now, let me take you back as to why we needed to do it in my country. That was the case in 1974: seven children for family. Tremendous growth at three point three percent. There was just no future; we needed to reduce the poverty interest rate. So we said, "Let's do it." The women said, "We agree; we'll use pills, but we need doctors to prescribe the pills." And we had very, very few doctors.

So we didn't take "no" as an answer; we took "no" as a question. So we went to the nurses and the midwives, who were also women, and they did a fantastic job at explaining how to use the pill. That was wonderful, but it covered only 20% of the country. What do we do for the other 80%? Leave them alone and say, "Well, they're not medical personnel"? No, we decided to do a bit more.

So we went to the ordinary people that you saw below that yellow sign. I wish they hadn't wiped that because there was Coca Cola. We were so much bigger than Coca Cola in those days, and no difference. The people they chose were the people we chose; they're well-known in the community. They knew that the customer was always right, and they were terrific.

They practiced their family planning themselves, so they could supply pills and condoms throughout the country, in every village. So there we are; we went to the people who were seen as the cause of the problem to be the solution. Wherever there were people—and you can see that from the women selling things—here's the floating market selling bananas and crabs and also contraceptives.

Wherever you find people, you will find contraceptives in Thailand. And then we decided, why not get to religion? Because in the Philippines, the Catholic Church was pretty strong, and Thailand’s Buddhist. So we went to them, and they said, "Look, could you help us?"

So I'm there, the one in blue, not the yellow, holding a bowl of holy water for the monk to sprinkle holy water on pills and condoms for the sanctity of the family. And this picture was sent throughout the country. Some of the monks in the villages were doing the same thing themselves, and the women were saying, "No wonder we have no side effects; it's been blessed."

That was that perception. And then we went to teachers; you need everybody to be involved in trying to provide whatever it is that makes humanity a better place. So we taught the teachers; over a quarter of a million were taught about family planning with a new alphabet: A for condom, B for vasectomy, C for condom, and so on.

Then we had a snakes and ladders game. When you throw dice, if you land on anything pro-family planning, you move ahead. Like, "Mother takes the pill every night," put a very good mother; "Uncle buys condom," very good uncle; move ahead. And who gets strangled? Use condom; come back!

That again, again, is education plus entertainment. And their kids were doing it in schools too; we had real iterations with condoms. We had children's condom-blowing championships. And before long, the condom was known as the girl's best friend in Thailand. For poor people, diamonds don't make it, so the condom is the girl's best friend.

We introduced our first microcredit program in 1975, and the women who organized it said, "We only want to lend to women who practice family planning. If you're pregnant, take care of your pregnancy. If you're not pregnant, you can take a loan, not from us." And that was run by them.

After 35, 36 years, it's still going on. It's part of the village development bank. It's not a real bank, but it's a fund microcredit. We didn't need a big organization to run it; we were run by the villages themselves. You probably hardly seen a Thai man there; it's always women, women, women, women.

And then we thought we'd help America because America has been helping everyone, whether they want help or not. [Applause]

And this is on the 4th of July. We decided to provide vasectomies to all men, but in particular American men, to the front of the queue, right at the ambassador's residence during his Van Daan. The hotel gave us the ballroom for it; a very appropriate room.

Since it was near lunchtime, they said, "Alright, we'll give you some lunch." Of course, it must be American: you've got two brands, Coke and Pepsi, and then the food is either hamburger or hot dog. I thought a hot dog would be more symbolic, and here is this young man, Willy Boom, who worked for USAID.

Obviously, he's had this perspective because his hot dogs half-eaten, and he was very happy. It made a lot of news in America, and it angered some people. I said, "Don't worry. Come over; I'll do the whole lot of you!"

And what happened, you know, all this from seven children to 1.5 children, population growth rate of 3.3 to 0.5. You could call it the Coca Cola approach if you like. It was exactly the same thing. I'm not sure whether Coca Cola followed us, but we're good friends, and so that's the case of everyone joining in.

We didn't have a strong government; we didn't have lots of doctors, but it's everybody's job who can change attitude and behavior. Then AIDS came along and hit Thailand, and we had to stop doing a lot of good things to fight AIDS. But unfortunately, the government was in denial, denial, denial, so my work wasn't effective.

So I thought, well, if you can't go to the government, go to the military. So I went to the military and asked to borrow three hundred radio stations. They have more than the government, and they've got more guns than the government.

So I asked them if they could help us in our fight against HIV. After I gave them statistics, they said, "Yes, okay, you can use all the radio and television stations." And that's when we went onto the airwaves. And then we had a new prime minister soon after that, and he said, "Could you come and join?"

He asked me in because he liked my wife a lot. So I said, "Okay." He became the chairman of the National AIDS committee and increased the budget 50% for every ministry. Even judges had to be involved with AIDS education. Everyone.

We said the public institutions, religious institutions, schools—everyone was involved. And here, every media person had to be trained for HIV, and we gave every station half a minute extra for advertising to earn more money, so they were happy with that.

And then AIDS education in all schools, starting from the university. And these are high school kids teaching high school kids, and the best teachers were the girls, not the boys, and they were terrific. These girls who go around teaching about safe sex and HIV were known as "Mother Teresa".

And then we went down one more step. These are primary school kids, third and fourth grade, going to every household in the village, every household in the whole of Thailand, sharing AIDS information and a condom—every household given by these young kids.

No parents objected because we were trying to save lives, and this was a life-saver. We said everyone needs to be involved. So you have the companies also realizing that six start on work and debt; customers don’t buy, so they all trade.

And then we have this Captain Condom with his Harvard MBA going to schools and nice spots. You need a symbol of something. You know, in every country, every program, you need a symbol, and this is probably the best thing he's ever done with his MBA.

Then we gave condoms up everywhere: in the street, everywhere. Everyone in taxis; you get condoms. And also, in traffic, the policemen give you a hundred of our Cops-and-Robbers program. So can you imagine New York policemen giving out condoms? Of course, I can, and they'd enjoy it immensely.

Imagine if they had Condom-Dogs giving out to all sorts of people. Then, in our new change, we had hairbands, clothing, and a condom for your mobile phone during the rainy season.

These were the condoms that we introduced. One says "Weapon of Mass Protection." We found, you know, somebody here was searching for the Weapon of Mass Destruction. Well, we have found the Weapon of Mass Protection: the condom.

And then it says here, with the American flag, "Don't leave home without it." But I have some to give out afterwards, but let me warn you: these are Thai size, so be very careful. So you can see that condoms can do so many things.

Look at this: I gave this to Al Gore and to Bill Clinton also, "Stop global warming; use condoms." And then this is the picture I mentioned to you that the Weapon of Mass Protection.

And at the next Olympics, save some lives! Why just run around? And then finally, in Thailand, where Buddhists, we don't have a God, so instead, we say, "In Rubber We Trust."

So you can see that we added everything to our endeavor to make life better for the people. We had condoms in all the refrigerators in the hotels, in the schools, because alcohol impairs judgment.

And then what happened after all this time? Everybody joined in. According to the UN, new cases of HIV declined by 90%. According to the World Bank, seven point seven million lives were saved; otherwise, there wouldn't be many Thais walking around today.

So just showed you you could do something about it. Ninety percent of the funding came from Thailand. There was political commitment, some financial commitment, and everybody joined in the fight.

So just don't leave it to the specialists, and doctors, and nurses; we all need to help. And then we decided to help people out of poverty. Now that we got it somewhat out of the way, this time, not with government alone, but in cooperation with the business community, because poor people are business people who lack business skills and access to credit.

Those are the things to be provided by the business community. We're trying to turn them into barefoot entrepreneurs—little business people. The only way out of poverty is through business enterprise, so that was done.

So the money goes from the company into the village via tree planting. So it's not a free gift; they plant the trees, and the money goes into their microcredit fund, which we call the village development bank. Everybody joins in, and they feel they own the bank because they've brought the money in.

Before that, you can borrow the money; you need to be trained. And we believe in what will help the poor. Those are living in poverty; access to credit must be a human right—access to credit must be a human right. Otherwise, they'll never get out of poverty.

And then, before getting a loan, you must be trained. Here's what we call a barefoot MBA teaching people how to do business, so that when they borrow our money, they'll succeed with the business.

So these are some of the businesses: mushrooms, crabs, vegetables, trees, fruits, and this very interesting Nike ice cream and Nike biscuits. This is a village sponsored by Nike. They said they should stop making shoes and clothes, make these better because we can afford them.

And then we have silk ties. Now we're making Scottish patterns, as you can see on the left, to sell to all people or Scottish ancestors. So anyone sitting in and watching TV can get in touch with me.

And then this is our answer to Starbucks in Thailand: coffee and condoms. See, Starbucks keeps you awake; we keep you awake and alive. Can you imagine at every Starbucks that you can also get condoms? So you can order your countdown to the cappuccino.

And then, finally, in education, we want to change the school as being underutilized into a place where it's a lifelong learning center for everyone. We call this our school-based integrated rural development.

It's a center, a focal point for economic and social development. So we do the school make it serve the community needs. And here is a bamboo building; all of them are bamboo. This is a geodesic dome made of bamboo, and I'm sure Buckminster Fuller would be very, very proud to see a bamboo geodesic dome.

And we use vegetables around the school ground, so they raise their own vegetables. Then finally, I firmly believe if we want the MDGs to work, the Millennium Development Goals, we need to add family planning to it—of course, our mortality first, and then family planning.

Everyone needs family planning service; it's underutilized. So we have now found the Weapon of Mass Protection, and we also ask the next Olympics to be involved in saving lives. And then finally, that is our network, and these are Thai tulips.

Thank you very much indeed! [Applause]