`The elderly, too, are involved in earning something. Otherwise, what the hell should they do? Sit down there like damaged cows at a police station?' MECHAI VIRAVAIDYA Thai community leader

Whether it's a plate of pad thai or a vasectomy you're longing for, you can find it at Cabbages and Condoms in Bangkok.

Tucked behind a turkish bath on a side street off one of the city's busiest thoroughfares, the restaurant-frequented by businessmen and backpackers alike-is dedicated to good food and safe sex.

Condoms the size of tire tubes hang from trees in the courtyard, and prophylactics are passed out after dinner instead of breath mints.

The man behind it all is Mechai Viravaidya, who began Cabbages and Condoms as a small vegetable stand 20 years ago. Today, the business has expanded into a chain of eight restaurants and five resorts. But this isn't all that keeps Mechai busy. He is also the founder and chairman of the Population and Community Development Association (PDA) in Thailand, and an ambassador to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS.

At first glance, Mechai's office at PDA headquarters, next door to Cabbages and Condoms, looks like any other office: A large desk, overflowing book shelf, coffee table and leather couches occupy the room. But then you notice that the flowers on the table are actually a ``bouquet'' of rolled condoms, and the design underneath the glass tabletop is a cheery collection of colored condoms, arranged in the shape of Australia.

Mechai, who attended secondary school and university in Australia before returning to Thailand in 1965, founded Cabbages and Condoms with the notion that condoms should be as easy to buy as cabbages.

Mechai insists that his restaurant's notoriety comes from the food, not the condoms, and seems bored by people who make a big hoopla out of giving out a few pieces of rubber.

``You have the U.S. Open, and you use tennis balls. They come from a rubber tree just like a condom. Why isn't the U.S. Open infamous? We use less rubber than the U.S. Open,'' he says.

In addition to the restaurant and health clinic at Cabbages and Condoms, there's a gift shop selling handicrafts from rural villages and a sex-education center. Coffee and Condoms, a cafe dedicated to just that, will open soon to provide an additional reference center.

The catchiness of Cabbages and Condoms-both the restaurant and its programs-has earned it international attention, including a request from Australian parliamentarians that a branch be opened in their country.

For now, however, Mechai has his sights set on the United States, a place he considers to be in dire need of such an establishment. ``Asia is not so embarrassed by the condom-not like America.'' Plans are under way to open branches in the U.S. in conjunction with Planned Parenthood, an organization ``not embarrassed talking about sex.''

``If McDonalds can open in Thailand, we're going to open in America and get money back here through business,'' he says.

For Mechai, there should be no divide between the business world and the non-profit sector. The relationship between Cabbages and Condoms and PDA is inextricable; not only do both promote safe sex and family planning, but also 100 percent of the restaurant's profits go to supporting PDA.

A symbiotic relationship between business and non-profit work is indispensable, Mechai says. ``We knew from day one that you could not expect to live off of charity forever. It's like a mother's milk.''

Mechai founded PDA 31 years ago, and a supporting business opened on its heels, one year later. Today, 16 companies support the work of PDA, classified as ``businesses for social progress,'' ranging from construction and manufacturing to real estate. All profits are funneled directly into the work of PDA. ``Donors come and donors go. It's like Viagra,'' Mechai says. ``So we had to get ready and help ourselves.''

It's this that has saved PDA from sharing the fate of the many organizations forced to close their doors each year due to insufficient funding. Last year, Mechai reports, PDA received 70 percent of its funding from business profits, and the remaining 30 percent from grants, gifts and donations.

Mechai is adamant about not depending on handouts, both as means of survival for PDA, and as a philosophy for its programs. What began as the promotion of family planning in rural areas has expanded into numerous rural development projects, from income generation and occupational training to water-resource development and environmental conservation.

No one should be left out of the development process, Mechai says, and that's why PDA begins projects by working with groups that are typically overlooked: women, youth and elderly. Including everyone allows for both solidarity and independence, he says. ``The elderly, too, are involved in earning something. Otherwise, what the hell should they do? Sit down there like damaged cows at a police station?''

In the wake of the recent tsunami, PDA decided to focus its efforts in communities perhaps overlooked by other relief efforts-small villages that were not home to high rise-resorts and mass casualties.

``These are not the villages that you've read about or seen in the newspapers-the resorts and so on,'' Mechai explains. ``These are other villages, the unseen villages.''

In many of these areas, there might not have been a huge loss of life, but the the tools to make a living were lost-boats were destroyed; nets were shredded. ``They don't have savings, because they have basically an ATM machine; everyday they go out to their fish traps, out to sea, and they get fish. Who needs savings?''

As one villager in Krabi Province told PDA workers following the tsunami: ``Nobody died-but everything stopped. There is no work. There is no income.''

Although there has been an outpouring of foreign aid following the tsunami, Mechai says it doesn't always reach everyone, nor is it always appropriate (heaps of winter clothing, for instance, serve little purpose in Thailand's steamy climate). While many of the damaged resorts are receiving government funding and insurance money, ``backwater'' villages, those on the bottom end of the economic scale, are often overlooked, Mechai says.

``It's the little people who-as the saying goes in Thai-are like dogs looking at an airplane. They see it but they don't get a seat on it.''

To counter this, PDA workers initially visited tsunami affected areas with questions instead of answers. ``We were in the field from day three, and met with the villagers to find out their real needs, rather than say, `We think this is what you need.''' From these conversations, PDA developed 10 projects to integrate into 80 communities along the coast, ranging from school-lunch programs and educational-support packages to village banks and women's income generation.

The psychological impact of the tsunami should not be underestimated, Mechai says, and the best way to remedy it is to help people regain their independence. ``We know this is the only way to work with dignity for them,'' he says. ``In most of these areas the psychological (damage) is loss of confidence, not depression or sadness.''

Aid to the villages comes in the form of interest-free loans and development projects, not charity. ``Nothing was given for free,'' Mechai explains. ``We use the business approach not the charitable approach, because the charity doesn't stop poverty but business does.''

In the midst of repairing torn fish nets and toppled houses, PDA has not lost sight of its original purpose of promoting safe sex and family planning. This, too, plays a part in community building post-tsunami.

``Everything we do has to have something to do with safe sex and HIV/AIDS,'' Mechai says. ``If you're not killed by the tsunami, you're going to get killed by something bigger than a tsunami-it's called AIDS.''(IHT/Asahi: March 12,2005)