The Ministry of Interior has started a project entitled ‘Volunteers to Protect the Monarchy’ to recruit volunteers from villages across the country.

Mongkol Surasajja, Director-General of the Department of Provincial Administration, said that a lot of people were interested and had joined the project.  Each district is supposed to have at least 1,000 volunteers at the beginning.  The project has expanded to include youth as well.

The project will benefit people in the whole country, as currently the country has been affected by conflict. All people are unified by His Majesty the King.  In this project, everybody will join hands to do good things, to uphold the unity of the country, to be determined to protect the monarchy with their lives, and to put the philosophy of the Sufficiency Economy into practice across the country, Mongkol said.

The Director General said that the volunteers to protect the monarchy come from all kinds of people, including village leaders, village health volunteers, civilian defence volunteers, community development volunteers, and youth.

On 8 June, Mongkol presided over the opening ceremony of the project for the southern border provinces in Yala province, with the participation of over 2,000 people, including villagers and local officials.

In the ceremony, volunteer identification cards were given to representatives of volunteers from 33 districts in the southern border provinces.  The participants took an oath of allegiance before a photograph of His Majesty the King.