A Quiet Resistance: Karen Women Entrepreneurs Leading Savings Groups in Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand

This chapter discusses the impact of a local saving group on an ethnic-minority Karen community in the Thailand–Myanmar border area. The savings group is locally referred to as Klum Omsap. It was established in 2007, with the assistance of a non-governmental organization (NGO), the Pattanarak Foundation, in order for the Karen people to overcome their economic and political marginalization in a predominantly Thai context. With time it has opened up further opportunities by facilitating the creation of new economic ventures, such as community stores, grassroots welfare schemes, and, more recently, a waste-management system. The authors are applying a diverse economies (DE) perspective in tracing the evolution of these community-driven economic ventures. The saving group has not only helped the local Karen people to overcome their exclusion from the formal economy, but it has also proved to be a driving force in the socioeconomic empowerment of local women, who now manage their own community enterprises.