Multilingual police station in Narathiwat wins another award

A citation written by the Crimes Reporters and Photographers Association of Thailand, which gave Joh I Rong police the Prototype Police Station award, read that the station’s top brass had made available staff who could speak Malay and Yawi to serve Muslim residents.
Station chief Colonel Suchart Sa-ei said residents felt welcomed when they contacted police and they no longer needed to bring clerics or Thai-speaking relatives for help.
“This has also helped build trust,” he added.
The lingual capabilities of Joh I Rong police has been extended from an original initiative by the station’s former chief, Pol Colonel Prayong Khote-sakha, who had signs at the station written in Thai, English and Yawi. The initiative resulted in the station winning an award from an outside agency two years ago.
Suchart said his policy followed a good initiative ahead of the full establishment of the Asean Economic Community next year.
The station’s multilingual ability has also been praised by King Prajadhipok’s Institute, which said it coincided with a KPI policy that involved expanding the promotion of peace solutions in the far South.
The Santi Thani (City of Peace) policy stipulates that education, public health and legal equality are key ingredients to winning over local Muslims in an attempt to achieve an end to the violence and deliver sustainable peace. Police are the basic and most important infrastructure in the entire justice system, KPI said.
Joh I Rong district is where the Santi Thani pilot project is based. It started with efforts to reduce or ease the language barrier among local residents.
The award and recognition for the police station, along with the Santi Thani model, have prompted other police stations to follow suit.
A Muslim student, Phitchada Derye-sud, praised the multilingual policy but said it could be made more concrete. She would prefer to see future police stations built based on local architecture and design.