From Controlling Pests to Discussing Condoms

At 45, Yun Lungta commands respect from the Burmese migrant workers at the Thanathorn Orange Plantation in Chiang Mai’s Fang district. As head of the workers, his tasks include helping the plantation manager in pest control, along with some administration duties.

Although already busy, he recently took on another role: as a health volunteer teaching workers at the plantation about reproductive health.

The Planned Parenthood Association of Thailand (PPAT) reproductive-health project for Burmese male migrants in part entails the training of some of the workers as health volunteers. Aside from Yun Lungta, 24 more workers from Thanathorn were trained for the project, along with 84 others from another orange plantation, a community of construction workers, and a transport company.

According to project officer Benjawan Srivichai, topics covered during the training of the health volunteers included sexual and reproductive health practices, services, and rights; birth control through contraceptives such as condoms, as well as through vasectomies and tubal ligations; family planning; prevention of STDS; and male and female roles.

“This is not the first time I have done something like this,” says Yun Lungta. “(Previously) they provided training on malaria, bird flu, and dengue fever, and I was the one who was trained and then taught the workers what I had learned.”

But he admits that talking about sexual and reproductive health turned out to be harder, especially when his audience included women and when the topics were about negotiations about having sex or using condoms.

Still, Yun Lungta has soldiered on, and he says he is proud that he is able to tell workers at the plantation about the right way of using a condom and how to avoid contracting and spreading STDs.

He also says that the knowledge he gained from the PPAT project has enabled him to take care of himself better and understand his wife more.

His wife Ou agrees. Thirteen years younger than Yun Lungta, she says that she feels she can now talk about her needs with him – something that she never thought she could do before.

A pleased Yun Lungta adds that the whole experience has had him thinking more of how he and his wife can maintain a “warm” or healthy family.