About Us

We been supported Karen Hill Tribe for more than 20 years. And keep doing it!

In the late nineteen-seventies our Founder, Jim Soutar, then working at the British Embassy in Bangkok, travelled extensively in the mountains of Northern and Western Thailand. He observed that major development work was being directed towards those ethnic hill tribe minorities which were involved in opium production and/or in communist insurgency. The Karen, who have been in Thailand for at least 1,000 years, were involved in neither of these activities, and thus were receiving little or no development assistance. In 1983, on leaving Government service, Jim was asked by Father Joseph Seguinotte, founder of the Hill Tribes Children's Centre at Ban Mae Pon, Chomthong, Chiangmai, to establish a foundation with the ultimate view of providing a vehicle for the karen to be responsible for and in control of their own self-development. The following year the work of the foundation began in earnest with our first staff member, Chumphol, who was regrettably suddenly to die of diabetes some 8 years later. Our first major volunteer project was in July/August 1986, when a group of students from Gordonstoun School implemented a water project at Ban Mae Pon, to the delight of Father "Joe", who had been the creator of the whole concept.

Pakanyor Foundation

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