Population and Community Development Association (PDA) is a non-governmental organization founded by Mr. Mechai Viravaidya in 1974 to contribute to social development and improvement of people’s quality of life. PDA’s achievements are acknowledged both domestically and internationally. PDA has carried out hundreds of projects to improve the quality of life for people in rural and urban areas. Activities started in 1974 with promotion of family planning and primary healthcare by initiating a volunteer system in villages all over Thailand. This network then became the base for widening the scope of activities, i.e., establishment of community organizations, income-generation and occupational training, promoting education, environmental conservation, water resource development, and democracy.
PCDA began in Thailand with a radical approach to campaigning for family planning and HIV/AIDS education.
Health and family planning remain important but now are embedded in programs that address the core problem of poverty through Village Development Partnerships.
Once known as "Dr. Condom," Mechai Viravaidya leads the most diversified NGO in Thailand, still with a sense of humor.
PDA social enterprises include the popular restaurant chain Cabbages and Condoms and the Business for Rural Education and Development Co. (BREAD).
To improve the quality of life for people in rural and urban areas.
By bringing together key community stakeholders and drawn support and participation across government bodies, public and private organizations, civil society and from a community level up to a policy level.
As a young economist working for the government, Mechai Viravaidya saw that rapid population growth in rural Thailand was compounding the problems of poverty. He launched the Population and Community Development Association (PDA) in 1974 to try a radical approach: a campaign for family planning and HIV/AIDS education that brought conversations about condoms out into the open and added humor, achieving for himself a nickname, “Condom King of Thailand.” The population growth rate fell from 3.2 percent in 1974 to 0.5 percent in 2005. Mechai considered this important but returned to the core problem of poverty with PDA’s Village Development Partnership (VDP) model, a serious endeavor to eradicate poverty by partnering a rural village with a sponsoring company or organization. It addresses development in five key areas: community empowerment, income generation, education, environmental promotion, and health.
Mechai Viravaidya had a pivotal role in Thailand’s immensely successful family planning program, which saw one of the most rapid fertility declines in the modern era. The rate of annual population growth in Thailand declined from over 3 percent in 1974 to 0.6 percent in 2005, and the average number of children per family fell from seven to under two. Another initiative is widely regarded as one of the most outstanding national efforts by any country combating HIV/AIDS. By 2004, Thailand had experienced a 90 percent reduction in new HIV infections. In 2005, the World Bank reported that these preventative efforts helped save 7.7 million lives throughout the country and saved the government over $18 billion in treatment costs alone.
