A student-led YouTube channel is helping Thailand’s youth improve their English.
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This story was written by Nathamon (Hilight) Silprachawong, founder of SOS and the first Thai recipient to be recognised as a Global Youth Award Finalist and Global Change Ambassador at the Museum of London on behalf of SOS.
The Source of Success (SOS) organisation is a collaboration between students with the goal of using student-led interviews to inspire, advocate and empower Thailand’s youth. The interviews cover a range of cultural themes and social issues based on our special guests’ life journeys. Our guests are leaders from business, politics, medicine, science and entertainment.
I was inspired to found SOS by education inequality due to inaccessible opportunities to practice English or to partake in discussions regarding global issues. The SOS organisation has a total of 900 active students and followers internationally. So far, SOS has released more than 22 interview series on our YouTube channel and 125 videos across all platforms, and has more than 44,000 views on YouTube alone.
Some of our special guests include Chadchart Sittipunt and Apirak Kosayodhin – the current and former governors of Bangkok, Olympic Volleyball Ambassador Nootsara Tomkom, UN Women Ambassador Cindy Bishop, CMO of Central and Robinson department stores Rvisra Chirathivat and the host of Drag Race Thailand, Pangina Heals.
Because Thailand's ranking in terms of students' English skills was 101 out of 113 countries in 2023, according to an article in the Bangkok Post, SOS believes that these interviews could be further used in the SOS Extension Program as teaching materials for students in grades 7-12 in English programs in Thai Schools, providing additional education and enhancing opportunities for students to practice public speaking skills.
We launched this program by conducting SOS workshop sessions with more than 200 students from schools in Surat Thani and Hat Yai. The extension program addresses education structures and sparks more discussions by using interviews as a vehicle to brainstorm ideas.
SOS Extension Program participants shared that they learned about social stratification, leadership styles, UN sustainable development goals and time management from guests while at the same time expanding their vocabulary.
I believe that a single story can go a long way in sparking positive action to drive social change, and would like to pass this invaluable legacy of storytelling to others.
All in all, SOS represents the urgency to interview more, to shed light on inequalities in order to increase global affairs literacy and to make quality education more accessible to all.
All youths can join SOS by directly messaging us on our SOS instagram account. You can also find Source of Success on Facebook and YouTube.
