:Title:    Community at Opok Farm Village
:Author:   Linda Nowakowski
:Date:     Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:59:12 PDT
:URL:      http://www.ned.com/group/opokfarms/news/3/

One of the most important aspects of a sufficiency economy community, in my opinion, is the community.  Community is where you find support and where you can find help in times of trouble but also and maybe more importantly, a group to share and celebrate successes with.

The King of  Thailand has proposed the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy as a development tool starting at the very lowest level. At the very lowest level  you have the people who in someways are the most fragile (and in some ways the strongest!).  They are the people who feel even a slight change in circumstances in their gut -- literally.  

When the Asian financial crisis hit Thailand in 1997, it was the poorest of the poor farmers who got hurt the quickest and the hardest.  And they felt that crisis in their stomachs, with nothing to eat.  Volume-wise, they were not hit the hardest but someone who loses a real estate investment is much better able to handle that shock. The more you have, the safer it is to take risks.

Sufficiency entails three components:

  1.	moderation
  2.	reasonableness
  3.	a self-immunity system, i.e. being able to cope with shocks from internal and external changes.

Two underlying conditions are necessary to achieve this sufficiency:

  1.	knowledge (breadth and thoroughness in planning, and carefulness in applying knowledge and in the  implementation of those plans are required)
  2.	morality (people are to possess honesty and integrity, while conducting their lives with perseverance, harmlessness and generosity)

What I want to talk about here is the development of community as a part this system.