Sister to Sister: Educate, Empower, & Protect

Earlier this month, International School Bangkok (ISB) recognized International Women’s Day to bring awareness to issues that significantly affect and impact women around the globe. Minin, a High School student at ISB, has not only been raising awareness of women’s issues but has been actively effecting change through education for young women in Thailand. 

In 2021 Minin founded Sister to Sister, an organization whose mission is to educate, empower, and protect women. Through Sister to Sister, Minin has designed and created educational content such as “The Pink Book,” a board game, and more which she uses to educate others on women-related issues.

Educate: The Making of The Pink Book

“So initially, it started off with going to English education and food distribution trips with the organization iCare Thailand,” said Minin. These trips with iCare exposed Minin to different communities and girls. Seeing the need for more education, Minin wanted to do something to help support and educate. 

Sister to Sister began as a social media platform where Minin could share educational infographics that she created about relationships, how women could stay safe, etc. “I just wanted to help educate girls about this because education about these topics is somewhat limited in Thailand,” said Minin.

It was out of these topical infographics that “The Pink Book” was born - a ‘big sister’s guide to life, relationships, health, the body, self-protection, beauty, and more. The book offers a holistic and relational approach to women’s issues. Written in Thai and English, the book is both a tangible and accessible tool to help educate girls. 

Empower: Engaging Communities & Fundraising

Minin has used this tool to engage and empower the ISB community in various ways. Firstly, she taught “The Pink Book” to a Middle School class after Mrs. Saddington, the middle school health teacher, read her book and requested copies for her classroom. Secondly, Minin worked with ISB Parent-Teacher Auxiliary to obtain a grant to supply the school with more copies of “The Pink Book” as well as to participate in ISB’s Health Fair where she sold her book and educated our community on women’s issues in Thailand. 

Minin said, “the ISB community as a whole, I think, like, it's quite a service-minded community…and that culture kind of influenced me to want to do stuff outside of school as well…My first fundraising initiative regarding Sister to Sister was [making] scarves that I designed myself and produced in order to fundraise for baby supplies and vocational school for teenage mothers. But then I soon realized that instead of tackling the consequences that played out, it would be better to tackle the root cause, which is what made me decide to create a book. So after creating the book, I decided to put my project on Taejai in order to fundraise for me to go teach at more schools, and that worked really well.”

Beyond the walls of ISB, Minin has taken her book to government-funded schools and communities across Thailand. In addition to putting her project on Taejai, a crowdfunding platform, she also interned with them, working alongside fellow project owners who also created innovative startups to help with social issues.

Protect: Learning about Safety through Games

“For my design technology internal assessment [part of an ISB course], we have to create a product surrounding a global issue that we're passionate about and for me, that was woman-related issues. So I decided to create a board game about consent or like topics related to consent, such as social intelligence, safe and unsafe touch,” said Minin.

Minin worked with our Middle and Elementary School counselors on what content to include in the game. “I also partnered with an ISB alumni who created her own organization…and we kind of brainstormed ideas about the board game mechanism together, and we're probably going to go distribute it together,” said Minin. The board game aligns with the mission of Sister to Sister because it’s about protecting children by educating them on how to stay safe and be socially aware.

“I would say it's [geared] more towards a younger audience than my pink book and in a more like gamified manner, because I know for me, games are a really interactive and helpful way to learn topics. So that's why I wanted to do that,” said Minin. 

Teaching the Next Generation

Minin was also awarded the "คนดี GenZ" (Exemplary GenZ Award) from the chairman of the sub-committee on morality and ethics at the National Assembly for her Pink Book project and all the other work she’s done combatting women-related issues.

When asked what Minin has learned throughout these projects, she replied, “The biggest takeaways were probably the skills that I got and also like the people that I met from doing this project. I learned to have more empathy. My public speaking skills improved from going to like teach the book. I learned how to connect more with diverse members of different communities.”

At ISB, we develop learners who are passionate and who will become caring global citizens. Minin truly exemplifies this passionate and caring global citizenship. We could not be more proud of her work, learning, and leadership. 

If you would like to support Minin’s Sister to Sister organization, you can follow her on Instagram or Facebook. If you would like to donate or purchase a copy of the book, you can direct message her through the platforms linked above.

For more information about ISB's High School programs and admissions see here or send an inquiry directly to our admissions team by clicking here.