Facebook awash with purple and praise for the Princess
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PEOPLE marked Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn's 60th birthday by posting photos of her and wishing her the best on social media on Thursday. They also embraced purple, the colour that marks her birthday.
We could see how Thais pay respect to the Princess in the digital way. Some people posted photos of themselves with the Princess to show respect and express their fondness for her, while many posted photos of themselves wearing purple.
All that day, if you were on social media, be it Facebook or Twitter, you would have seen all this.
Activities held to show the public’s respect for the Prince and to celebrate her birthday were posted and shared all day.
For example, Udon Thani municipal mayor Itthipol Triwattanasuwan posted photos of public activities in the northeastern town on his Facebook page to celebrate her birthday.
These photographs were later used by mainstream media including Thai PBS and Post Today, which posted them on their Facebook pages.
Banyong Suwanpong posted a photo of a purple building on Facebook with the message that people in Uthai Thani painted the building to show their respect and to celebrate the Princess’s birthday.
The National Science and Technology Development Agency and the Ministry of Science and Technology marked the occasion by holding the NSTDA Annual Conference 2015 under the theme of “Science, technology and innovation: Princess Sirindhorn’s initiatives for the benefit of Thai society during March 30 to April 2”.
It was revealed her initiatives benefit multiple sectors from agriculture to industry.
The agency also had an exhibition called “Initiatives of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, or the Princess’ IT” at the Sirindhorn Science Home at Thailand Science Park.
NSTDA also launched the book called the “Science and Technology Projects of the Princess”.
The book shows all the initiatives of the Princess in utilising science and technology to improve the quality of life for disadvantaged people and to drive the country on to the world’s science and technology development map.
The ICT project of the Princess for disadvantaged people covers four groups – child patients, punished juveniles, disable people and prisoners.
The project is run and operated by the Her Royal Highness’ ICT Fund and working group.
Under the scheme 87 of the 143 prisons around Thailand have computer rooms with 16 computers to provide computer-related courses such as animation, multimedia, graphic design and computer graphics.
More than 20,000 inmates have also been trained and work as call centre staff. Prisoners can earn Bt11,000 a month.
And when they get out of prison, they can continue their call centre job.
