Empower aims at fostering social and economic resilience within Bangkok’s communities, thereby enabling them for self-help and reinvestments, which ultimately will result in enhanced environmental resilience as well.

Bangkok has one of the largest tourist influxes in the world. This immense pressure on Bangkok has led to its unprecedented and unsustainable growth. The measures taken to deal with the pressures have caused socio-economic disparity and environmental damages. Income disparity in combination with skyrocketing land-prices has become an increasing concern for the population. The adverse repercussions faced first-hand by the population include substandard housing, informality and gentrification.

Our solution, “Empower” therefore suggests measures to maximize the potential of vulnerable communities by providing them with means of income generation using local knowledge and resources. One example for this could be the implementation of urban community-driven tourism, which would not only protect local communities but would also reduce commercialized tourism The community-based tourism would be enabled by cooperatives and hence become a solution that is replicable, customizable and scalable.

This solution would be accessed via a platform connecting locals and tourists directly, thereby having the local communities participate from the value added more than currently, in the situation with several intermediaries. Besides the platform serving as a base for promotion, transparency of information would ensure protection of both, the locals and the tourists. The cooperative would also ensure the representation of the different interest groups and allows for a fair and transparent redistribution of the income in the interest of the entire community.

Through our project, we intend to create socio- economic resilience, where the long-term solution would promote ecological resilience through enhanced financial capacity building.