Mitsui & Co., Ltd. has been supporting the activities of the Mae Fah Luang Foundation*1 ("MFL Foundation") since 1990, when it became the first foreign company to participate in that organization's Doi Tung Development Project*2.

In recent years, the MFL Foundation has been implementing the Sustainable Alternative Development Project with the support of the governments of Thailand and Myanmar, with the mission of ending poverty and building infrastructure for sustainable development in three regions of Myanmar. Mitsui & Co. has made donations in agreement with the mission of the project.

Many regions in Myanmar still have only limited or no access to electric power. Using funds donated by Mitsui & Co., the MFL Foundation has procured a stand-alone photovoltaic power package "Power Supply Station" manufactured by Panasonic Corporation and installed it in Yin Ma Chaung, a village in the Magway Region. The provision of the stand-alone electricity generator with support from Mitsui & Co. has enabled this village to take the first steps toward becoming an autonomous, independent community.

*1 The Mae Fah Luang Foundation under Royal Patronage was founded in 1972 by Her Royal Highness the Princess Mother (then Princess Srinagarindra), a member of the Thai royal family. Since then, the MFL Foundation has worked to improve the autonomy and self-sufficiency of impoverished people living in Thailand and neighboring countries, and to provide wide-ranging support for environmental countermeasures, the preservation of performing arts and culture, and education.

*2 The MFL Foundation has been implementing this project in the Doi Tung region, which adjoins the "Golden Triangle", since 1988. The aim is to end poppy cultivation by helping communities to secure legal sources of income through transitioning to commercial crop farming.

Street lights brighten the night

Reading of sutras in a village hall

Local residents gather around the Power Supply Station