International Volunteer Day

There's been a real explosion of activity from the volunteering sector, which can only mean one thing - International Volunteer Day (5th Dec don't you know) is just round the corner! I've had a lot of fun the last couple of days, attending lots of events that have been run by various members of the volunteer network I work for. Here's my top 3:

World AIDS Day Art Exhibition- As some of you may know, the first of December is World AIDS Day. The National AIDS Foundation tried to publicise this to the wider community by running an art exhibition in a gallery not far from Parliament Square. The exhibition showcased the work of the city's students. I was very impressed with the standard and creativity of the various entries. All in all I think the day was a success, especially as a couple of national TV stations showed up.

Concert for the elderly and isolated - A really touching event. On Sunday the organisation Service for Peace ran its now annual cultural festival. The event aimed to provide an evening of enjoyment to many of Ulaanbaatar’s vulnerable and isolated people, and was run by volunteers. During the day 150 volunteers went out into the city's outskirts and gathered approximately 1000 disabled and elderly people, pretty impressive I think. Seeing the smiles on the audience's faces was really a beautiful sight - everyone had a great time.

International Disability Day - the 3rd of December was National Disability Day, so volunteers helped the Wheelchair Users Association celebrate through an event called “My Capital City”. 14 wheelchair-bound people visited various sites around the city (the City Council Office, the Mobicom mobile phone centre, the APU drinks factory and Tengis Movie Theatre). The aim of this was twofold: to illustrate how difficult it is for disabled people to access most buildings in the city, and to give the disabled people a chance to see parts of the city they do not usually get to see.

You can see photos of all these events at http://picasaweb.google.com/schliner/InternationalVolunteerDayEvents. Enjoy!

Tomorrow is International Volunteer Day itself, and we have a couple of things planned then. I'll tell you all about it next week...