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
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