‘Hire Me’: Thai project gives homeless people a better chance at life

BANGKOK: A group of people were hard at work on the dusty roadside by a railway. 

Wearing yellow aprons and black gloves, they swept dry leaves into piles and scooped up garbage with their hands. Their faces are wrinkled and beaded with sweat while their skin burned in the scorching sun. But they are happy to do it every week.

“The job is easy but you have to be clean and focused. You can’t just do it for fun,” said one of the cleaners, Chalee Maneeterm.

Like his colleagues, Chalee is a participant of the Hire Me project or “Jangwan Ka” in Thai, which seeks to provide jobs for people with no home or on the brink of becoming homeless.

The initiative was launched in July by the Mirror Foundation, a non-governmental organisation that has advocated social development in…