Nai Amphoe Noi

Already for the second time, the Department of Provincial Administration is doing a summer camp for older children to learn about government service. It is titled Nai Amphoe Noi (นายอำเภอน้อย), which means something like "junior district head officer". Since the district office is the administrative office every Thai will have to visit - it houses the civil registry, so every time a Thai relocates, marriages, register children, as well as renew the ID card, they have to go to this office. So it's not surprising the head of this office was chosen as the career model to introduce government to youths. Fitting to the young target group, the corresponding website naiamphoenoi.com is of course full with animations.

To join in this summer camp, one has to

• Be in the first three years of secondary education (ม.1-ม.3), i.e. between 12 to 14 years of age.
• Apply as a group of three children from one school.
• Groups has to submit a proposal on how to reduce global warming in their home district.

However, it is already to late to join, as the plan had to be submitted by June 18. By now, the 20 winning teams to join the actual camp have already been chosen. The final round will then be held in July or August. Since this project has made it into a second year already, I won't be surprised that it will become a regular annual one.

Funny detail - when looking at the hires version of the logo on the download page, the armband of the Manga-like child shows quite strange characters π"-Õ and so on. Some small charset problem, apparently their drawing software does not use Unicode. On the poster however it show correct Thai characters.