A Different Kind of Black Friday in Klong Toey

Many of you might remember the story I shared recently about my visit to a slum in Lagos, where children were exposed to intense smoke from traditional fish-smoking pits. The people suffering the most from air pollution are often the ones with the fewest protections.

So when Dr. Wirun, a medical doctor and Co-Founder of the Thailand Clean Air Network, contacted me about the low-income neighborhood of Klong Toey in Bangkok, I was immediately interested to support this initiative. He asked whether we could donate and install a few air quality monitors there, and it immediately felt like exactly the kind of work we should be doing. If we want to understand the real human impact of pollution, we must spend time with the communities that cannot easily shield themselves from it.

Communities like Klong Toey face a disproportionate burden from poor air quality. Many live right next to industrial zones, ports or heavy traffic corridors. Their homes often provide little protection against fumes. They usually cannot afford air purifiers, improved ventilation, or cleaner cooking equipment. The poorest communities often breathe the worst air.

Klong Toey is one of the most densely populates areas in Bangkok

Klong Toey is home to roughly 80,000 to 100,000 people packed into less than two square kilometers. Pollution here is not uniform. It can fluctuate dramatically from one alley to the next because of cooking fires, small engine repair shops, emissions exhaust trapped between tightly spaced houses. Yet this is a community that hardly appears on air quality maps.

The Duang Prateep Foundation

I met Dr. Wirun and his team at the Duang Prateep Foundation (DPF). The foundation has one of the most inspiring origin stories I have ever come across. Its founder, Prateep Ungsongtham, grew up in Klong Toey herself. As a young woman, she began teaching children in a small shack with her own savings. Her commitment eventually evolved into a respected community organization providing education, support and opportunities for thousands of families. She later received national recognition for her work.

The goal of installing air quality monitors in Klong Toey is to capture what residents actually breathe. In areas as dense as this, air quality can be highly localized. A reference station even one kilometer away will not detect micro-hotspots caused by cooking, small workshops or emissions drifting in from the port.

To capture this reality, we installed three monitors:

• One at the DPF school, where many children spend their day
• One deeper inside the residential area, in the heart of the narrow alleys
• One near the community perimeter, closer to the port and external emissions

As we walked from the foundation building into the inner parts of the neighborhood, the readings rose immediately. This is exactly why data needs to be collected where people live, not only where city planners decide to place official stations.

Collecting data is only the first step. It also needs to be understood by the community. So Dr. Wirun created a small app based on the popular LINE messenger that enables the people in the community see life air quality data. Additionally, AirGradient’s new iOS and Android apps, fully are also supporting the Thai language.

This allows teachers, parents and community workers to understand when air pollution is rising and adjust their activities accordingly. It also builds awareness of both local pollution sources and the pollution drifting in from outside the neighborhood.

When I visited Lagos last month, the government responded after the community gained visibility into its pollution levels. They installed improved fish-smoking kilns that dramatically reduced smoke exposure for the children living nearby.

With Klong Toey, we hope to support a similar journey. The combination of hyperlocal data and Dr. Wirun’s medical expertise and advocacy work can help correlate pollution peaks with health impacts, from asthma episodes to coughing patterns. This creates stronger arguments for targeted interventions, whether inside the community or in discussions with city authorities and the port administration.

A special thanks to all the people that I met yesterday and for their important work in Klong Toey.

1. DPF: Kru Prateep, Founder; Jee (Penwadee), General manager; Muay, Baan Mankong community; Fai, Tam, and Jun, Lock 1-2-3 community; Kru Orm, Kindergarten teacher;
2. Society and Health Institute Foundation (SHIF): Da, SHIF general manager; Palmy, SHIF Research Assistant; Dr.Wirun, SHIF general secretary and Thailand CAN co-founder;
3. Thailand Clean Air Network: Weenarin, co-founder.

By the way, if you like to see the live data from these new monitors, checkout our map.

A Different Kind of Black Friday

In the taxi on my way to Klong Toey, I had a call with my Communication Team and Black Friday came up and the discussion if we should do some campaigns today. However, I feel it’s more important that our team engages with communities, does meaningful work, makes a difference rather than working on AB testing promotions and trying to convince people to buy something that they might not really need (although I believe an air quality monitor is a good investment, especially an open-source one that can easily be repaired …).

So I spent Black Friday walking through narrow alleys in Klong Toey, climbing up to rooftops to install sensors, and sitting with community workers who dedicate their lives to protecting children who breathe some of Bangkok’s most polluted air. I think that is my time better spent than thinking about Black Friday promotion slogans.

If you work in a low income community impacted by air pollution, please reach out to us.