Snowy Ulaanbaatar

Last Monday we had a big downpour of snow, which the locals say marks the start of winter. The city looks a lot pretty with it's new white blanket - all the dirt is hidden away underneath the snow. It's pretty chilly, so whilst it hasn't snowed since the city still remains covered. I love it! The only problem is that everything becomes a lot more slippery. For some unknown reason the Mongolian authorities have decided to build all new pavements with very flash paving stones (sometimes using polished marble). The only problem is that these stones give pedestrians no grip what so ever! For a country which is covered with snow/ice for almost a third of the year this seems absolute craziness. Oh well, "at least the pavements look nice"...

My colleagues and I are all gearing up for the most important date of the Mongolian volunteering calendar - International Volunteers Day (5th of December). All the different member organisations of the volunteer network that I work for are planning different events. Service for Peace will be getting its volunteers out on the streets to tell drivers to wear their seat belts. The Donors Association will be visiting university campuses to try to get more young people to sign up to be blood donors. The streets of Ulaanbaatar will be awash with volunteers - hopefully! The big climax of International Volunteers Day will be a cocktail party. I hasten to add that this was not my idea, but hey - maybe it will draw in the politicians and funders... Anyway, during the cocktail party we'll have an awards ceremony which will highlight the work that some Mongolian volunteers are doing. That at least will be a really good thing.

The Hair Cut - As I was beginning to feel self-conscious of the fact that during important meetings I constantly had to brush my hair out of my eyes I felt the time was right to get a hair cut. Thus, this Thursday I popped round to the girls' flat (four of the female VSO volunteers live together) and was 'treated' to a free hair cut. It was very kind of Ruth to volunteer her services. However I think she took too much off - I miss my long hair! Oh well, it will grow back in a month, and I suppose it made me look more smart for...

Trip to Parliament - On Friday I was lucky enough to be invited to a ceremony inside the main parliament building (an honour which not many Mongolians, let alone foreigners have had). The reason - one of the organisations I work with, the Mongolian Youth Federation, was helping to run the annual civic vow event. When Mongolians turn 16 years old, they are expected to pledge their allegiance to the nation and then receive their passport. The event I went to was a ceremonial version of this every day occurrence - one 16 year old from each region of Mongolia was invited to take part in a more formal version of this coming of age ceremony. The event itself was quite interesting. It was a real show of patriotism, with the crowd clutching their breast on several occasions. A brass band played the national anthem, some people recited poetry and a local film star came to sing some traditional songs. It's interesting to see how patriotic the youth of Mongolia are - quite a contrast to young people in the UK.
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Anyway, at the end of the ceremony I managed to have a quick peek around the Parliament building, and what a luxurious building it was! The place was filled with leather seats and full of beautiful artwork. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed anywhere near the main chamber where parliament gathers, but the outer quarters were still a sight for sore eyes...

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Right, back to the 'real world'. I hope all of you are well and are having fun. Best wishes from a slippy Ulaanbaatar,

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Robert

On Tour with Amnesty International Mongolia

This week I went back to one of my favourite pastimes – training young people to be campaigners! Amnesty International Mongolia very kindly invited me along to help them with some training they were doing in two schools in Mongolia, and I couldn’t refuse – I was active as a student with Amnesty back in the UK, and so was exited by the opportunity to help a similar Amnesty youth programme spread in Mongolia. Thus, I packed my bags and headed out with Otgo, Samboo and Gerlee for what proved to be an interesting experience…

We went to visit schools in second and third biggest cities in Mongolia, Erdenet and Darkhan (both to the north of Ulaanbaatar). The plan was to go to two schools and give a select group of the children training on volunteerism and campaigning. It was hoped that this training would lead to the creation of self-sustaining school campaigning groups (groups of children who would be running Amnesty campaigns in the local community). The training would give the young people the skills they would need to run a campaigning group effectively, and built up to one final activity – the youth would go out on the streets and do a campaign for real!

Erdenet – the first group we worked with, and as it turned out, the best. This was a fantastic group of young people who were a real pleasure to be with. The young people were really friendly and welcoming, and were very attentive during their training. They were very enthusiastic as well! One of the groups ran a campaign designed to get shopkeepers to stop selling alcohol to children (much to the displeasure of some shopkeepers!), whilst another group did a campaign about the global arms trade. My Amnesty colleagues and I left Erdenet with mixed emotions – we were sad to say goodbye to a group of really nice young people, but we believed that we had been successful – they should continue campaigning into the future. More generally speaking, Erdenet was a lovely place. Perhaps I was swayed by the blanket of white snow that was covering everything, but it just seemed such a nice, friendly city.

Darkhan – so far so good, but the group at Darkhan was more difficult! The children we ran a training for were from one of Mongolia’s top private schools, and the difference between them and the Erdenet state-school educated youth was instantly visible. Here follows a rant, for which I apologise in advance…

The children’s initial reaction was to be critical of the message we had to bring, and would always have excuses ready as to why they shouldn’t be helping the community out. We regularly encountered statements like “people who are poor are lazy, they can’t be helped”. Also, I was shocked at how rude and arrogant some of the children were. One example was when one young man spilt tea all over the floor and yet did not clean it up. When I (the white foreigner) went to clean it up he said I shouldn’t as it would bring shame to him and his class. Instead I should wait for the cleaner to come and sort it out…

I suppose it’s things like this that really stuck with me, but I shouldn’t let it cloud over the positives from the Darkhan training. The youth did some good campaigns (after a lot of persuasion), and the local media came to do a story on how young people were doing work for the local community. Thus, Amnesty/volunteerism in general got some coverage, which can only be a good thing.

Now I’m back in the big city of Ulaanbaatar. Otgo and I both said it was sad to end our adventure and return to our computer screens in our offices, but I can’t do training all the time I suppose!

November the 9th - Network Meeting Extraordinaire

The culmination of the hard work of the last few weeks occurred on the 9th of November. It was on that date that my colleagues and I hosted a large meeting for the members of the Mongolian Volunteer Network (the organisation that I work for). The aim of the meeting was to get the many member organisations together, and to encourage them to share their skills/experience with each other and create a plan for the future. With these aims in mind I think the meeting was a relative success. The first half of the day was filled with networking and skill-sharing events. Then the afternoon session contained discussions on the structure for the network (it's voting procedures, etc) and proposals for a plan for 2008.

Over 40 participants from 23 organisations came, which was a great turnout. We even managed to get the network meeting publicised in the local media, and a camera crew from TV 25 showed up to take some footage and do some interviews. We made the evening news! Whilst the event was fun, now the real work starts - I've got to get down and think about how DEMO (an NGO, and the current host of the network) and I can implement the suggestions that were made during the meeting.

Having said that, my mind is currently on other things. I've just finished the first day of a four day training event that Amnesty International Mongolia and I are running for two regional schools. Today was the turn of Erdenet Secondary, and on Wednesday we'll be heading off to Darkhan (one of my favourite places in Mongolia - see http://rob-in-mongolia.blogspot.com/2007/09/ive-properly-starting-to-settle-in-ive.html). So far it's be good fun (the participants are 14/15 years old, so full of energy!). As someone who was quite active with Amnesty international back in the UK, it's a real privilege to be able to help out the organisation in Mongolia. Anyway, I'll update you all about how the training went in the next weblog entry... Lots of love from an internet cafe in a very snowy Erdenet,

Robert

# Welcome to the House of Fun #

On Friday our house was transformed for a day into a house of fear, trepidation and toilet paper hanging from the ceiling. Yes, that’s right – we had a Hallowe'en Party! Jon, Jude and I invited our colleagues and friends along to our house party. Little did we know that almost everyone accepted our invitations… 40 Mongolians turned up. This made for a pretty good party! The Mongolians had never experienced a Hallowe'en party before (having only heard about them through American films/sitcoms). They were all pretty intrigued. They also loved the idea of having a house party. As many Mongolians still live in gers (tent houses), or live with their families, house parties are pretty tricky to organise. We all had a good time, and the house is still in one piece!

Preparing for Network Meeting – The work I’ve been doing for the last few weeks is close to its fruition. This coming Friday the 9th of November I’ll be helping to host an important meeting for the National Volunteer Network. The meeting will allow the 21 different member organisations to get to know each other better and share their skills. It will also contain two discussions. We’ll be looking at how to change the procedures of the network (the voting process, the amount of time one organisation can host the network, whether there is a need for a presidential figure), and will be planning the network’s 2008 strategy. We’ve encouraged some of the local press to come to cover the event, so if many turn up we’ll be raising the profile of volunteerism in Mongolia. I’ve managed to get the English language press to turn up too (The Mongol Messenger and the UB Post). Any articles they write may prove useful for future fundraising proposals. The attached photo has little to do with the meeting, besides from the fact that it's a view from the conference centre where the meeting will take place. Enjoy!

The COLD – yep, it’s starting to get pretty cold here in Ulaanbaatar. Last week’s average was -7C, and I’ve been told it’s just the start. By January the average will be -25C, and will sometimes hit -35C! The result of this cold is that many of Ulaanbaatar’s street children end up sleeping in the sewers. The children go to sleep next to the heating pipes that run underground. Whilst I’ve read about this problem, it was pretty shocking to see this first-hand, and actually see young people climb in and out of the manholes in the streets. I feel very lucky to have my warm room to return to everyday.

That’s me signing off for another week. Warm wishes from a cold Mongolia,

Robert