Everything packed and ready to experience Bangkok!
For over a month we have studied the case through others. We have created our knowledge through academic articles, lectures and seminars adding a deeper understanding of the Thai culture and the Baan Mankong Collective Housing Programme.

Before, I just knew the global image that Thailand as a country represent, added to borrowed images and perceptions from friends and the media: A country with amazing islands, beaches, food, friendly people, Big Buddha’s, and of course with a lively and mixed capital city.

Fortunately, we are going to have the opportunity to know Bangkok and its urban dynamics beyond the tourists’ eyes. I am very excited about confronting my own “imagined” reality with the experiences, people, events, and circumstances we are going to encounter there.

I hope this experience will live up to my current expectations with the Baan Mankong Program: If it is truly producing the social change required; if the people involved are actively adapting and being enthusiastic with this new model of action -from individual to collective-; if it has been able to transform people’s lives; and finally, if this way of thought and practice have the potential to influence a global change in governance for being implemented and culturally adapted into other realities.