Abstract for presentation at Global Social Work 2004

The current Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand has adopted the principles of human rights into its important courses and articles. Thus, various forms of human rights mechanism have been recently established in order to promote and protect human rights within the country. The government has obligation to promote rights and justice among the citizen in compliance to the constitutional provisions. The Department of Rights and Liberties Protection, Ministry of Justice has been newly established in order to raise awareness on rights and liberties as well as to promote community safety through conflict resolution measures among the citizen at the community level.The pilot project on the development of the community prototype for rights and liberties protection and conflict resolution thus, has been initiated and carried out with three main objectives including; to promote people to gain knowledge and understanding their rights and liberties as well as the procedures of justice system, to promote community safety through conflict resolution and mediation measures at the community level, and to develop a community prototype to be able to protect theirown rights and liberties through people participation process. The project has been financially organized by the Department of Rights and Liberties Protection with the collaboration of the community work academics from various universities throughout Thailand.The pilot projects have been conducted in four different locations in different regions.Each community has been selected through its different component of characteristics and identities.This community prototype project demonstrates that the community work practices have successfully contributed to the plan to promote citizenship, human rights, and social justice at the community level in Thailand. A panel presentation on this project in form of symposium will be made by the projects organizers and participants who represent both academics and practitioners under the same theme that covers results from different project sides in the village community in each region throughout Thailand.