Abstract
Non-government Organizations’ Health Promotion Programs Thailand’s Case Study : Bicycle Riding Club for Heatlh The Riding Club for Health was one of the NGOs having a number of continuous activities to encourage health promotion. This study was to review the club’s activities since its establishment to determine factors supporting its success. Large portion of information was derived through interviewing the club’s committee and members in addition to its bulletin and printed document. Additional information was collected by the use of questionnaire to ask the club participants. The analysis framework was the principles of analyzing organization, work system, organization’s strategies and human resource. The Ottawa’s Charter emphasizing partnership development to support health promotion programs was also used for analysis. The Bicycle Riding Club was originated from those who loved bike-riding gathering to do outdoor activities with bike-riding in addition to campaign on environment and health promotion. The club administration was in form of committee with no compensation for them. The club grew up in size of members and activities later networking with domestic and international ridging clubs. The club was a good example of encouraging tourism with bicycles prior to health promotion campaign given that health promotion was a by-product of tourism. The important strategy of the club was to seek partnerships in order to create social power for health policy development. The partnership whose interest was similar was likely to be sustainable. Nevertheless, some activities like the bike pathway and natural environment campaign did not achieve their objectives on account of lacking continuous campaign resulted from the fact that all members were volunteered. Lastly, despite the club nationally accepted as one of the health promotion organizations, the extent of the club members’ health holistic understanding which was the most important principle of promoting health, was still doubted.
