Social Enterprise
Women's Massage Center by Ex-Prisoners
Thai massage social enterprise supporting the reintegration of formerly incarcerated women in Chiang Mai.
The heart of it
Vocational training can prepare women for work before they leave prison. The harder part can be finding an employer willing to hire them afterward. This center was created for that next step.
The impact, in short
Training Before Release
Women complete Thai massage training while incarcerated and can continue using those skills professionally after release.
Employment After Prison
The center creates paid work specifically for formerly incarcerated women, who can face significant barriers to employment after release.
Traditional Thai Massage
The center carries forward a traditional Thai healing practice, keeping its techniques in active use through professional massage work.
Independence Through Work
Paid massage work gives women a source of independent income after leaving prison.
What it is
The Women’s Massage Center by Ex-Prisoners is a massage business in Chiang Mai staffed by women who learned traditional Thai massage while incarcerated and continued working in the profession after their release.
The idea addresses a practical gap in rehabilitation. Vocational training can give women a skill before leaving prison, but a criminal record can still make finding work difficult afterward. The center provides a place where that training can become paid employment.
The women work as professional massage practitioners, offering traditional Thai massage and related treatments to local and international visitors. Customers come for the service; in the process, their spending supports a business built around employment after incarceration.
Before you go
Are the practitioners professionally trained?
Is this the massage center inside the women’s prison?
Follow the thread
Across places and generations, women and their work are connected — through craft, tradition, community and shared experience. Sistra follows those threads.
