BANGKOK, Thailand (ILO News) – Using sign language, Panupong Mitpitak and Thanakorn Suddai shared their newfound aspirations of becoming entrepreneurs, thanks to training that they received from the ILO’s Young Futuremakers Thailand project, during an event celebrating the end of the project in the country’s capital, Bangkok, last month.

“As a person with a hearing disability, communication is a challenge when it comes to applying for a job,” explained 20-year-old Mitpitak, who now plans to open a coffee shop.

“I had no serious professional training, and wasn’t sure of what I was interested in,” Mitpitak explained. “I like cooking and I know that coffee is popular among customers. Now that I have received Barista training and have learned to make several kinds of coffee, I have even come to like coffee myself.”

The ILO-supported project also ran hairdressing training, which used visual demonstrations of hair cutting as a primary teaching method. This, Suddai said, allowed him to learn and made him decide to become a barber. 

“Before the training, I didn’t know a thing about cutting hair. After the training, I realized that I could do it, designing and cutting,” Suddai said. “We may not have the same ability to learn, but we have dreams, and I believe we can follow our dreams.”

ILO Country Office Director for Thailand, Cambodia and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Xiaoyan Qian, also attended the event. She expressed her appreciation for the support that the Standard Chartered Foundation, Thailand’s Ministry of Labour, and Yala City Municipality had given to the project. 

“This project has achieved so much with your support. It has opened doors to so many youth and helped them make their dreams come true,” said Qian.

Illustrative image (internet)

The ILO’s Young Futuremakers Thailand project has provided training and career guidance to more than 1,000 young people, including close to 200 persons with disabilities. 

For three years the ILO’s Young Futuremakers Thailand project offered training courses focusing on digital skills, entrepreneurial development, and language skills. The initiative also included a career guidance fair and a collaboration with the Labour Ministry’s Department of Employment to adapt the ILO’s Public Employment Services (PES) diagnostic tool.   

The project expanded in 2022 to the southern region of Thailand, where young people face significant challenges to find decent work, according to the 2023 ILO report, Promoting Youth Employment in Songkhla and Yala, Thailand.