Entrepreneurial teen gets the word out on drugs

NEARLY ONE MILLION Thai youngsters have been given sound advice about the harmful effects of illicit drugs through the anti-drugs programme Dare, but 16-year-old Pattaris “Pi” Chaipromprasith has taken it upon himself to get the message out to a lot more teens.

The son of Yongyutt and Mayuree Chaipromprasith – he’s chairman of AQ Estate and she’s senior vice president for business promotion at Siam Piwat – certainly seems to have inherited his folks’ business smarts and entrepreneurial gifts.

Pi, alas, had seen one too many of his friends succumb to the temptations of getting high and then paying the consequences, so, on a holiday back home from his studies at a US high school, he signed up for the Dare Thailand project.

Dare, which is an acronym for Drug Abuse Resistance Education, quite literally “dares” kids to stay strong and responsible enough to say “no” when someone offers them a dose of dubious fun. The programme was born in in 1983 in America, and migrated here in 1999. There are now 8,000 Royal Thai Police officers involved, visiting schools and teaching children about making the right decisions so they can lead safe and healthy lives, growing up “straight” instead of bent by bad habits.

Dare taught Pi that drug abuse is a global issue, but that campaigns aimed at stemming the tide are stymied by inconsistency and their inability to reach enough people in their most vulnerable years.

“I do appreciate the Dare Thailand project, but I think it should be promoted more widely to the public,” says Pi, sounding wiser than his age. “So I wanted to set up online channel for Dare to communicate better with young people. Teenagers nowadays communicate more online, so that’s where we need to promote drug awareness. I submitted a proposal to Dare Thailand and it was approved by Police Lt-General Kamrob Panyakaew, the assistant commissioner-general who’s in charge of Dare Thailand, and I got on with my plan.”

Right off the bat he “rebranded” the project, giving it a fresh logo (his parents must be tickled). “My first step in reaching out to teenagers was to change the brand image to grab their attention and help them understand our message better.” Pi got Nontawat “Moo” Charoenchasri, owner of the creative studio Ductstore the Design Guru, to “modernise” the project with a flashy new logo.

Then Pi set up a Facebook page. “The original Dare Thailand Facebook page is a closed group – it’s for the instructors, not the kids. So I decided to open another account for Dare members and the general public. It makes everything easy to access, which encourages more young people to join. Through Facebook and Instagram we’re able to raise awareness about Dare Thailand and educate the public about the dangers of drug abuse.” 

The efforts quickly bore fruit, with the Facebook page earning more than 10,000 “likes” since its debut in July. “And within the first month there were a lot more kids attending the DARE lectures,” says Pi. “I’m also making T-shirts to raise funds for DARE Thailand.”

Watch the teenage dynamo in action at www.DareThailand.com and www.Facebook.com/ThailandDARE.